The human rights record of the United States of America is a complex matter with varying opinions; first and foremost the Federal Government of the United States has, through a ratified constitution, guaranteed unalienable rights to citizens of the country, and also to some degree, non-citizens. These rights evolved over time through constitutional amendments, supported by legislation and judicial precedent. Along with the rights themselves, the periphery of the population who had access to these rights has expanded over time. Today, the United States has a vibrant civil society and strong constitutional protections for many civil and political rights.[4]

In 1776, Thomas Jefferson proposed a philosophy of human rights inherent to all people in the Declaration of Independence, asserting that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Historian Joseph J. Ellis calls the Declaration "the most quoted statement of human rights in recorded history".[27]

After the Revolutionary War, the former thirteen colonies went through a pre-government phase of more than a decade, with much debate about the form of government they would have.[30] The United States Constitution, adopted in 1787 through ratification at a national convention and conventions in the colonies, created a republic that guaranteed several rights and civil liberties. However, it did not extend voting rights in the United States beyond white male property owners (about 6% of the population).[31] The Constitution did refer to "Persons", not "Men" as was used in the Declaration of Independence, and it omitted any reference to the supernatural imagination (such as a "Creator" or "God") and any authority derived or divined therefrom, and allowed "affirmation" in lieu of an "oath" if preferred.[32] The Constitution thus eliminated any requirement of supernatural grant of human rights and provided that they belonged to all Persons (presumably meaning men and women, and perhaps children, although the developmental distinction between children and adults poses issues and has been the subject of subsequent amendments, as discussed below). Some of this conceptualization may have arisen from the significant Quaker segment of the population in the colonies, especially in the Delaware Valley, and their religious views that all human beings, regardless of sex, age, race, or other characteristics, had the same Inner light. Quaker and Quaker-derived views would have informed the drafting and ratification of the Constitution, including through the direct influence of some of the Framers of the Constitution, such as John Dickinson and Thomas Mifflin, who were either Quakers themselves or came from regions founded by or heavily populated with Quakers.[33]

Dickinson, Mifflin and other Framers who objected to slavery were outvoted on that question, however, and the original Constitution sanctioned slavery (although not based on race or other characteristic of the slave) and, through the Three-Fifths Compromise, counted slaves (who were not defined by race) as three-fifths of a Person for purposes of distribution of taxes and representation in the House of Representatives (although the slaves themselves were discriminated against in voting for such representatives).

As the new Constitution took effect in practice, concern over individual liberties and concentration of power at the federal level, gave rise to the amendment of the Constitution through adoption of the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments of the Constitution. However, this had little impact on judgements by the courts for the first 130 years after ratification.[34]

Courts and legislatures also began to vary in the interpretation of "Person", with some jurisdictions narrowing the meaning of "Person" to cover only people with property, only men, or only white men. For example, although women had been voting in some states, such as New Jersey, since the founding of the United States, and prior to that in the colonial era, other states denied them the vote. In 1756 Lydia Chapin Taft voted, casting a vote in the local town hall meeting in place of her deceased husband.[35][36][37] In 1777 women lost the right to exercise their vote in New York, in 1780 women lost the right to exercise their vote in Massachusetts, and in 1784 women lost the right to exercise their vote in New Hampshire.[38]
From 1775 until 1807, the state constitution in New Jersey permitted all persons worth over fifty pounds (about $7,800 adjusted for inflation, with the election laws referring to the voters as "he or she") to vote; provided they had this property, free black men and single women regardless of race therefore had the vote until 1807, but not married women, who could have no independent claim to ownership of fifty pounds (anything they owned or earned belonged to their husbands by the Common law of Coverture).[39] In 1790, the law was revised to specifically include women, but in 1807 the law was again revised to exclude them, an unconstitutional act since the state constitution specifically made any such change dependent on the general suffrage. See Women's suffrage in the United States. Through the doctrine of coverture, many states also denied married women the right to own property in their own name, although most allowed single women (widowed, divorced or never married) the "Person" status of men, sometimes pursuant to the common law concept of a femme sole. Over the years, a variety of claimants sought to assert that discrimination against women in voting, in property ownership, in occupational license, and other matters was unconstitutional given the Constitution's use of the term "Person", but the all-male courts did not give this fair hearing. See, e.g., Bradwell v. Illinois.

In the 1860s, after decades of conflict over southern states' continued practice of slavery, and northern states' outlawing it, the Civil War was fought, and in its aftermath the Constitution was amended to prohibit slavery and to prohibit states' denying rights granted in the Constitution. Among these amendments was the Fourteenth Amendment, which included an Equal Protection Clause which seemed to clarify that courts and states were prohibited in narrowing the meaning of "Persons". After the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted, Susan B. Anthony, buttressed by the equal protection language, voted. She was prosecuted for this, however, and ran into an all-male court ruling that women were not "Persons"; the court levied a fine but it was never collected.

Fifty years later, in 1920, the Constitution was amended again, with the Nineteenth Amendment to definitively prohibit discrimination against women's suffrage.

In the 1970s, the Burger Court made a series of rulings clarifying that discrimination against women in the status of being Persons violated the Constitution and acknowledged that previous court rulings to the contrary had been Sui generis and an abuse of power. The most often cited of these is Reed v. Reed, which held that any discrimination against either sex in the rights associated with Person status must meet a strict scrutiny standard.

The 1970s also saw the adoption of the Twenty-sixth Amendment, which prohibited discrimination on the basis of age, for Persons 18 years old and over, in voting. Other attempts to address the developmental distinction between children and adults in Person status and rights have been addressed mostly by the Supreme Court, with the Court recognizing in 2012, in Miller v. Alabama a political and biological principle that children are different from adults.

In 1945 the members of the United Nations organization completed the drafting of its founding text – the United nations charter: The USA played a significant role in this process.[40]

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Drafting Committee was chaired by former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who was known for her human rights advocacy. Similarly, for the United States government and its citizens, much remained uncertain about the future impact, force, and reach of international human rights. Eventually the United States had not yet developed a policy approach regarding whether or not it would recognize international human rights within a domestic context. Certainly there were already some domestic political attempts, as for example President Truman'sCommittee on Civil rights, which authored a report in 1947 initializing the possibility to apply the UN charter in order to combat racial discrimination in the US. Now that the United States had successfully adopted the UDHR, obviously it seemed like human rights would play a leading part in domestic law within the US. Still there was harsh controversy over the question whether to apply international law on the inner-land-basis. Though William H. Fitzpatrick won the Pulitzer Price for editorial writing in 1951; in his editorials he had repeatedly warned against international human rights overthrowing the supreme law of the land. Indeed, Fitzpatrick's concerns and motivations – as well as those of his readers – stood for the longstanding, bitter social and political struggles that divided much of the United States at the time, keeping in mind that in the 1940s and 1950s racial divisions, political exclusion, and gender inequalities were basic facts of American social life.[41]

However, today there is little worry in the United States about the effect that human rights might have on its domestic law. Over the past few decades, the United States government has often held itself up as a strong supporter of human rights in the international arena. Nonetheless, in the view of the government human rights are still rather an international than a domestic phenomenon – representing more of choice than obligation.[42]

Having today overcome many of the inequalities from more than half a dozen decades before, still the United States is in violation of the Declaration, in as much that "everyone has the right to leave any country" because the government may prevent the entry and exit of anyone from the United States for foreign policy, national security, or child supportrearage reasons by revoking their passport.[43] The United States is also in violation of the United Nations' human rights Convention on the Rights of the Child which requires both parents to have a relationship with the child. Conflict between the human rights of the child and those of a mother or father who wishes to leave the country without paying child support or doing the personal work of child care for his child can be considered to be a question of negative and positive rights.

Within the federal government, the debate about what may or may not be an emerging human right is held in two forums: the United States Congress, which may enumerate these; and the Supreme Court, which may articulate rights that the law does not spell out. Additionally, individual states, through court action or legislation, have often protected human rights not recognized at federal level. For example, Massachusetts was the first of several states to recognize same sex marriage.[46]

In the context of human rights and treaties that recognize or create individual rights, U.S. constitutional law makes a distinction between self-executing and non-self-executing treaties. Non-self-executing treaties, which ascribe rights that under the constitution may be assigned by law, require legislative action to execute the contract (treaty) before it becomes a part of domestic law.[47] There are also cases that explicitly require legislative approval according to the Constitution, such as cases that could commit the U.S. to declare war or appropriate funds.

Treaties regarding human rights, which create a duty to refrain from acting in a particular manner or confer specific rights, are generally held to be self-executing, requiring no further legislative action. In cases where legislative bodies refuse to recognize otherwise self-executing treaties by declaring them to be non-self-executing in an act of legislative non-recognition, constitutional scholars argue that such acts violate the separation of powers—in cases of controversy, the judiciary, not Congress, has the authority under Article III to apply treaty law to cases before the court. This is a key provision in cases where the Congress declares a human rights treaty to be non-self-executing, for example, by contending it does not add anything to human rights under U.S. domestic law. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is one such case, which, while ratified after more than two decades of inaction, was done so with reservations, understandings, and declarations.[48]

Under the principle of pacta sunt servanda a country may not invoke provisions of its domestic laws or constitution as justification for failure to comply with its international law obligations. Therefore, if a human rights treaty has been ratified by the U.S. but is not considered self-executing, or has not yet been implemented by legislation, it is nonetheless binding on the U.S. government as a matter of international law.

The United States has enacted comprehensive legislation prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race and national origin in the workplace in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (CRA).[50] The CRA is perhaps the most prominent civil rights legislation enacted in modern times, has served as a model for subsequent anti-discrimination laws and has greatly expanded civil rights protections in a wide variety of settings.[51] The 1991 provision created recourse for victims of such discrimination for punitive damages and full back pay.[52] In addition to individual civil recourse, the United States possesses anti-discrimination government enforcement bodies, such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.[52]

Beginning in 1965, the United States also began a program of affirmative action that not only obliges employers not to discriminate, but requires them to provide preferences for groups protected under the Civil Rights Act to increase their numbers where they are judged to be underrepresented.[53] Such affirmative action programs are also applied in college admissions.[53]

Following the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama was sworn in as the first African-American president of the United States on January 20, 2009.[59] In his Inaugural Address, President Obama stated "A man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath ... So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled".[59]

U.S. women suffragists demonstrating for the right to vote, February 1913

The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the states and the federal government from denying any citizen the right to vote because of that citizen's sex.[60] While this does not necessarily guarantee all women the right to vote, as suffrage qualifications are determined by individual states, it does mean that states' suffrage qualifications may not prevent women from voting due to their gender.[60]

The United States has enacted comprehensive CRA legislation prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender in the workplace.[50] The 1991 provision created recourse for discrimination victims for punitive damages and full back pay.[52] In addition to individual civil recourse, the United States possesses anti-discrimination government enforcement bodies, such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Beginning in 1965, the United States also began a program of affirmative action that not only obliges employers not to discriminate, but also requires them to provide preferences for groups protected under the CRA to increase their numbers where they are judged to be underrepresented.[53] Such affirmative action programs are also applied in college admissions.[53]

The United States has legally defined sexual harassment in the workplace.[61] Because sexual harassment is therefore a Civil Rights violation, individual legal rights of those harassed in the workplace are strong in the United States.[61][62]

Federal benefits such as Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) are often administratively viewed in the United States as being primarily or near-exclusively the entitlement only of impoverished U.S. people with disabilities, and not applicable to those with disabilities who make significantly above-poverty level income. This is proven in practice by the general fact that in the U.S., a disabled person on SSI without significant employment income who is suddenly employed, with a salary or wage at or above the living wage threshold, often discovers that government benefits they were previously entitled to have ceased, because supposedly the new job "invalidates" the need for this assistance. However, the Stephen Beck, Jr. Achieving a Better Life Experience Act of 2014 (the ABLE Act) amended Section 529 of the Internal Revenue Service Code of 1986 to create tax-free savings accounts (ABLE accounts) for qualified expenses, and with these accounts (each person may have only one account) people with disabilities who have a condition that occurred before age 26 can save up to $100,000 without risking eligibility for Social Security and other government programs.[69] They can also keep their Medicaid coverage no matter how much money they accrue in their ABLE account. Under current gift-tax limitations as of 2014, as much as $14,000 could be deposited annually. However, each state must put regulations in place so that financial institutions can make the ABLE accounts available, and there is no guarantee a particular state will do so.[70]

SSI benefits also require frequent reviews to "prove" the person is still disabled, and require the disabled person to be diligent about returning paperwork and reporting any income they make, raising concerns that it is unfair to people with disabilities, especially those with mental disabilities who are often unaware of how to navigate the complex bureaucracy needed to not lose their benefits, a situation not dissimilar to probation. The U.S. is the only industrialized country in the world to have this particular approach to disability assistance programming. These factors make it so that disabled people are in some senses second class citizens.

Intersex people in the United States have significant gaps in protections for physical integrity and bodily autonomy, particularly in protection from non-consensual cosmetic medical interventions and violence, and protection from discrimination.[81][82] Actions by intersex civil society organizations aim to eliminate harmful practices, promote social acceptance, and equality. In recent years, intersex activists have also secured some forms of legal recognition.[83]

The United States is a constitutional republic based on founding documents that restrict the power of government and preserve the liberty of the people. The freedom of expression (including speech, media, and public assembly) is an important right and is given special protection, as declared by the First Amendment of the constitution. According to Supreme Court precedent, the federal and lower governments may not apply prior restraint to expression, with certain exceptions, such as national security and obscenity. Legal limits on expression include:

Military censorship of blogs written by military personnel claiming some include sensitive information ineligible for release. Some critics view military officials as trying to suppress dissent from troops in the field.[87][88] The US Constitution specifically limits the human rights of active duty members, and this constitutional authority is used to limit speech rights by members in this and in other ways.

In two high-profile cases, grand juries have decided that Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper and New York Times reporter Judith Miller must reveal their sources in cases involving CIA leaks. Time magazine exhausted its legal appeals, and Mr. Cooper eventually agreed to testify. Miller was jailed for 85 days before cooperating. U.S. District Chief Judge Thomas F. Hogan ruled that the First Amendment does not insulate Time magazine reporters from a requirement to testify before a criminal grand jury that's conducting the investigation into the possible illegal disclosure of classified information.

Approximately 30,000 government employees and contractors are currently employed to monitor telephone calls and other communications.[91]

In November 2013, leaked documents revealed that the government and some large corporations had censored many blogs and news articles using existing surveillance programs.

Although Americans enjoy the freedom to peacefully protest, protesters are infrequently arrested, beaten, mistreated, jailed or fired upon which resulted in lawsuits or criminal prosecutions.

Protesters have also been arrested for protesting outside of designated "free speech zones".[92] At the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City, over 1,700 protesters were arrested.[93]

On May 4, 1970, Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on protesting students at Kent State University, killing four students. Investigators determined that 28 Guardsmen fired 61 to 67 shots. The Justice Department concluded that the Guardsmen were not in danger and that their claim that they fired in self-defense was untrue. The nearest student was almost 100 yards away at the time of the shooting.[94] Guards involved in the shooting were indicted. Eight of the guardsmen were indicted by a grand jury. The guardsmen claimed to have fired in self-defense, a claim that was generally accepted by the criminal justice system. In 1974 U.S. District Judge Frank Battisti dismissed charges against all eight on the basis that the prosecution's case was too weak to warrant a trial.[95] Civil actions were also attempted against the guardsmen, the State of Ohio, and the president of Kent State. The federal court civil action for wrongful death and injury, brought by the victims and their families against Governor Rhodes, the President of Kent State, and the National Guardsmen, resulted in unanimous verdicts for all defendants on all claims after an eleven-week trial.[96] The judgment on those verdicts was reversed by the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on the ground that the federal trial judge had mishandled an out-of-court threat against a juror. On remand, the civil case was settled in return for payment of a total of $675,000 to all plaintiffs by the State of Ohio[97]

The United States prevents U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba, citing national security reasons, as part of an embargo against Cuba that has been condemned as an illegal act by the United Nations General Assembly.[101] The current exception to the ban on travel to the island, permitted since April 2009, has been an easing of travel restrictions for Cuban-Americans visiting their relatives. Restrictions continue to remain in place for the rest of the American populace.[102]

On June 30, 2010, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on behalf of ten people who are either U.S. citizens or legal residents of the U.S., challenging the constitutionality of the government's "no-fly" list. The plaintiffs have not been told why they are on the list. Five of the plaintiffs have been stranded abroad. It is estimated that the "no-fly" list contained about 8,000 names at the time of the lawsuit.[103]

The Secretary of State can deny a passport to anyone imprisoned, on parole, or on supervised release for a conviction for international drug trafficking or sex tourism, or to anyone who is behind on their child support payments.[104]

The following case precedents are typically incorrectly cited in defense of unencumbered travel within the United States:

"The use of the highway for the purpose of travel and transportation is not a mere privilege, but a common fundamental right of which the public and individuals cannot rightfully be deprived." Chicago Motor Coach v. Chicago, 337 Ill. 200; 169 N.E. 22 (1929).

"The right of the citizen to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon, either by carriage or by automobile, is not a mere privilege which a city may prohibit or permit at will, but a common law right which he has under the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Thompson v. Smith, Supreme Court of Virginia, 155 Va. 367; 154 S.E. 579; (1930).

"Undoubtedly the right of locomotion, the right to move from one place to another according to inclination, is an attribute of personal liberty, and the right, ordinarily, of free transit from or through the territory of any State is a right secured by the 14th amendment and by other provisions of the Constitution." Schactman v. Dulles, 225 F.2d 938; 96 U.S. App. D.C. 287 (1955).

"The right to travel is a well-established common right that does not owe its existence to the federal government. It is recognized by the courts as a natural right." Schactman v. Dulles 225 F.2d 938; 96 U.S. App. D.C. 287 (1955) at 941.

"The right to travel is a part of the liberty of which the citizen cannot be deprived without due process of law under the Fifth Amendment." Kent v. Dulles, 357 US 116, 125 (1958).

Federal courts have ruled that a person does not have the right to drive an automobile, it is a privilege.[105][106]

Freedom of association is the right of individuals to come together in groups for political action or to pursue common interests.

Freedom of association in the U.S. is restricted by the Smith Act, which bans political parties that advocate the violent overthrow of the U.S. government.[86]

Between 1956 and 1971, the FBI attempted to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize" radical groups through the COINTELPRO program.[107]

In 2008, the Maryland State Police admitted that they had added the names of Iraq War protesters and death penalty opponents to a terrorist database. They also admitted that other "protest groups" were added to the terrorist database, but did not specify which groups. It was also discovered that undercover troopers used aliases to infiltrate organizational meetings, rallies and group e-mail lists. Police admitted there was "no evidence whatsoever of any involvement in violent crime" by those classified as terrorists.[108]

The right of revolution is the right or duty of the people of a nation to overthrow a government that acts against their common interests, and is a traditional assumption in American political thought.[109] The right to revolution played a large part in the writings of the American revolutionaries in the run up to the American Revolution. The political tract Common Sense used the concept as an argument for rejection of the British Monarchy and separation from the British Empire, as opposed to merely self-government within it. It was also cited in the Declaration of Independence of the United States, when a group of representatives from the various states signed a declaration of independence citing charges against King George III. As the American Declaration of Independence in 1776 expressed it, natural law taught that the people were "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights" and could alter or abolish government "destructive" of those rights.

The United States government has declared martial law,[110] suspended (or claimed exceptions to) some rights on national security grounds, typically in wartime and conflicts such as the United States Civil War,[110][111]Cold War or the War against Terror.[111] 70,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry were legally interned during World War II under Executive Order 9066. In some instances the federal courts have allowed these exceptions, while in others the courts have decided that the national security interest was insufficient. Presidents Lincoln, Wilson, and F.D. Roosevelt ignored such judicial decisions.[111]

Sedition laws have sometimes placed restrictions on freedom of expression. The Alien and Sedition Acts, passed by President John Adams during an undeclared naval conflict with France, allowed the government to punish "false" statements about the government and to deport "dangerous" immigrants. The Federalist Party used these acts to harass many supporters of the Democratic-Republican Party. While Woodrow Wilson was president, broad legislation called the Espionage Act of 1917 and Sedition Act of 1918 were passed during World War I. Thousands were jailed for violations of these laws, which prohibited criticizing conscription and the government, or sending literature through the US Mail doing the same. Most prominently it led to the conviction of Socialist Party of America Presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs for speaking out against US participation in World War I and conscription. Debs received ten years in prison, and ran for president a third time while in prison (on December 25, 1921, his sentence was commuted by President Warren G. Harding, releasing Debs early). Numerous conscientious objectors to conscription were also jailed, with a few dying due to mistreatment. In the post-war Palmer Raids, foreign-born dissidents were arrested in the thousands without legal warrants, and deported for their political beliefs.

Presidents have claimed the power to imprison summarily, under military jurisdiction, those suspected of being combatants for states or groups at war against the United States. Abraham Lincoln invoked this power in the American Civil War to imprison Maryland secessionists. In that case, the Supreme Court concluded that only Congress could suspend the writ of habeas corpus, and the government released the detainees. During World War II, the United States interned thousands of Japanese-Americans on alleged fears that Japan might use them as saboteurs-the US Supreme Court upheld this policy.

The federal government has set up a data collection and storage network that keeps a wide variety of data on tens of thousands of Americans who have not been accused of committing a crime. Operated primarily under the direction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the program is known as the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative or SAR. Reports of suspicious behavior noticed by local law enforcement or by private citizens are forwarded to the program, and profiles are constructed of the persons under suspicion.[112] See also Fusion Center.

U.S. workers work longer hours on average than any other industrialized country, having recently surpassed Japan.[115] U.S. workers rank high in terms of production.[116] During the 19th and 20th centuries, safer conditions and workers' rights were gradually mandated by law, but this trend has reversed to some extent towards pro-business policies since the 1980s.[117][118]

In 1935, the National Labor Relations Act recognized and protected "the rights of most workers in the private sector to organize labor unions, to engage in collective bargaining, and to take part in strikes and other forms of concerted activity in support of their demands." However, many states hold to the principle of at-will employment, which says an employee can be fired for any or no reason, without warning and without recourse, unless violation of State or Federal civil rights laws can be proven. In 2011, 11.8% of U.S. workers were members of labor unions[119] with 37% of public sector (government) workers in unions while only 6.9% of private sector workers were union members.[120]

The United States' maternity leave policy is distinct from other industrialized countries for its relative scarcity of benefits. The length of protected maternity leave ranks 20th out of the 21 high-income countries. Moreover, most foreign wealthy nations provide some form of wage compensation for the leave of absence; the United States is the only one of these 21 countries that does not offer such paid leave.[121]

Additionally, the United States and Papua New Guinea are the only countries in the world that do not guarantee paid maternal leave by law.[122]

In 2014, the United States received a poor grade of "4" on the ITUC's Global Rights Index, which ranks the worst places in the world for workers' rights, with "1" being the best and "5" the worst.[5] Other nations that scored a "4" include Argentina, Bahrain, El Salvador, Haiti, Hong Kong, Iraq, Iran, Mexico and Yemen.[123]

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948, states that "everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of oneself and one's family, including food, clothing, housing, and medical care."[125] In addition, the Principles of Medical Ethics of the American Medical Association require medical doctors to respect the human rights of the patient, including that of providing medical treatment when it is needed.[126] Americans' rights in health care are regulated by the US Patients' Bill of Rights.[citation needed]

Unlike most other industrialized nations, the United States does not offer most of its citizens subsidized health care. The United States Medicaid program provides subsidized coverage to some categories of individuals and families with low incomes and resources, including children, pregnant women, and very low-income people with disabilities (higher-earning people with disabilities do not qualify for Medicaid, although they do qualify for Medicare). However, according to Medicaid's own documents, "the Medicaid program does not provide health care services, even for very poor people, unless they are in one of the designated eligibility groups."[127]

Nonetheless, some states offer subsidized health insurance to broader populations. Coverage is subsidized for persons age 65 and over, or who meet other special criteria through Medicare. Every person with a permanent disability, both young and old, is inherently entitled to Medicare health benefits — a fact not all disabled US citizens are aware of. However, just like every other Medicare recipient, a disabled person finds that his or her Medicare benefits only cover up to 80% of what the insurer considers reasonable charges in the U.S. medical system, and that the other 20% plus the difference in the reasonable amount and the actual charge must be paid by other means (typically supplemental, privately held insurance plans, or cash out of the person's own pocket). Therefore, even the Medicare program is not truly national health insurance or universal health care the way most of the rest of the industrialized world understands it.

46.6 million residents, or 15.9 percent, were without health insurance coverage in 2005.[131]
This number includes about ten million non-citizens, millions more who are eligible for Medicaid but never applied, and 18 million with annual household incomes above $50,000.[132] According to a study led by the Johns Hopkins Children's Center, uninsured children who are hospitalized are 60% more likely to die than children who are covered by health insurance.[133]

The Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighteenth Amendments of the Bill of Rights, along with the Fourteenth Amendment, ensure that criminal defendants have significant procedural rights.[134] The Fourteenth Amendment's incorporation of due process rights adds these constitutional protections to the state and local levels of law enforcement.[134] The United States also possesses a system of judicial review over government action.[135]

The United States was the only country in the G8 to have carried out executions in 2011. Three countries in the G20
carried out executions in 2011: China, Saudi Arabia and the United States. The United States and Belarus were the only two of the 56 Member States of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to have carried out executions in 2011.[136] As of April 2015, only 18 states and the District of Columbia do not have the death penalty.

Capital punishment is controversial. Death penalty opponents regard the death penalty as inhumane[137] and criticize it for its irreversibility[138] and assert that it lacks a deterrent effect,[139] as have several studies[140] and debunking studies that claim to show a deterrent effect.[141] According to Amnesty International, "the death penalty is the ultimate, irreversible denial of human rights."[138]

The UN special rapporteur recommended to a committee of the UN General Assembly that the United States be found to be in violation of Article 6 the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in regards to the death penalty in 1998, and called for an immediate capital punishment moratorium.[144] The recommendation of the special rapporteur is not legally binding under international law, and in this case the UN did not act upon the lawyer's recommendation.

Since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976 there have been 1077 executions in the United States (as of May 23, 2007).[145] There were 53 executions in 2006.[146] Texas overwhelmingly leads the United States in executions, with 379 executions from 1976 to 2006;[147] the second-highest ranking state is Virginia, with 98 executions.[148]

A ruling on March 1, 2005, by the Supreme Court in Roper v. Simmons prohibits the execution of people who committed their crimes when they were under the age of 18.[149] Between 1990 and 2005, Amnesty International recorded 19 executions in the United States for crime committed by a juvenile.[150]

It is the official policy of the European Union and a number of non-EU nations to achieve global abolition of the death penalty. For this reason the EU is vocal in its criticism of the death penalty in the US and has submitted amicus curiae briefs in a number of important US court cases related to capital punishment.[151] The American Bar Association also sponsors a project aimed at abolishing the death penalty in the United States,[152] stating as among the reasons for their opposition that the US continues to execute minors and the mentally retarded, and fails to protect adequately the rights of the innocent.[153]

Some opponents criticize the over-representation of blacks on death row as evidence of the unequal racial application of the death penalty. This over-representation is not limited to capital offenses-in 1992, although blacks account for 12% of the US population, about 34% of prison inmates were from this group,[154] though studies dispute the involvement of racism - blacks commit crimes at a rate disproportionate to their representation in the population, and over half of homicides where the race of the offender is known were perpetuated by blacks.[155] In McCleskey v. Kemp, it was alleged the capital sentencing process was administered in a racially discriminatory manner in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

In 2003, Amnesty International reported those who kill whites are more likely to be executed than those who kill blacks, citing that of the 845 people executed since 1977 80 percent were put to death for killing whites and 13 percent were executed for killing blacks, even though blacks and whites are murdered in almost equal numbers.[156]

Some have criticized the United States for having an extremely large prison population, where there have been reported abuses.[160] As of December 2017 the United States had the highest percentage of people in prison of any nation.[26] There were more than 2.2 million in prisons or jails, or 737 per 100,000 population, or roughly 1 out of every 136 Americans. According to The National Council on Crime and Delinquency, since 1990 the incarceration of youth in adult jails has increased 208%.[161] In some states youth - juvenile is defined as young as 13 years old. The researchers for this report found that juveniles often were incarcerated to await trial for up to two years and subjected to the same treatment of mainstream inmates. The incarcerated adolescent is often subjected to a highly traumatic environment during this developmental stage. The long-term effects are often irreversible and detrimental.[162] "Human Rights Watch believes the extraordinary rate of incarceration in the United States wreaks havoc on individuals, families and communities, and saps the strength of the nation as a whole."[163] The length of prison sentences in the United States is widely criticized in other countries and is believed to be the biggest contributor to the country's large prison population. The length of the average prison sentences (for all crimes) in the United States far exceed those in most other countries. The United States is currently the country with the most life sentences, most of which are life without parole (LWOP). Mandatory minimum sentences and three-strikes laws are probably the largest contributors to the country's frequency of life imprisonment. It is estimated that 35% of federal US prisoners are older than age 60, many of whom were younger than 30 at the time of sentencing.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture, Juan E. Méndez, has requested that the United States stop holding prisoners in solitary confinement as "it often causes mental and physical suffering or humiliation, amounting to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and if the resulting pain or sufferings are severe, solitary confinement even amounts to torture." The U.N. estimates there are about 80,000 prisoners in solitary confinement in the U.S., and 12,000 of those are in California.[164] Two prisoners at the Angola prison in Louisiana, Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox, have each spent more than 40 years in solitary confinement.[165]

The United States has been criticized for having a high amount of non-violent and victim-less offenders incarcerated,[163][168][169] as half of all persons incarcerated under State jurisdiction are for non-violent offenses and 20 percent are incarcerated for drug offenses, mostly for possession of cannabis.[170][171] Marijuana legalization and decriminalization is seen as a step of progress in decreasing the prison population. Other non-violent offenses which carry extremely long prison sentences in the United States include fraud and other acts of corruption, offenses relating to child pornography, and contempt of court.

The number of foreign nationals in US prisons has skyrocketed in recent decades. The US Justice Department rarely approves of foreign prisoners' extradition to their home countries, and most are deported after serving their sentences instead of before their trials. This is seen as a huge contributor to prison overcrowding, especially in California, Arizona, and Texas. It is estimated that illegal immigrants from Mexico make up 40% of the prison population in those 3 states. This goes hand-in-hand with the US immigration policies, which have also been criticized by human rights groups.

The United States has also been widely criticized for its attitude towards parole and incarceration alternatives. There is no parole in the federal prison system, which has drawn international outrage from human rights groups and is believed to be a major contributor to prison overcrowding. In addition, 16 states have no parole in their prison systems. Parole is rarely granted where it is allowed, and the USA is the only country that currently has juveniles serving life sentences without parole. The USA has also been heavily criticized for having few or no alternatives to incarceration. Probation, fines, and community service are extremely rarely issued instead of prison time. It is believed that money and profits are the main driving factors behind all this.[citation needed]

Human Rights Watch has twice said that there are human right issues created by the current sex offender registry laws, and that they believe that what they call the burden of being publicly listed as a sex offender, combined with what they call "onerous restrictions placed on former offenders and their family members" are serious human rights issues. They have criticized what they call over-breadth of the registration requirement which tends to treat all offenders the same regardless of the nature of the offense and without accounting the risk of future re-offending, and the application of such laws to juvenile offenders, consensual teenage sex, prostitution and exposing one self as prank.[172][173] ACLU[174] and reformist group RSOL[175][176][177] have joined the critique saying that measures against sex offenders go too far and that current legislation is breaking constitutional rights of former offenders. Both organizations have been successfully challenging current laws in courts.[174][178][179][180][181][182][183] By way of comparison, European Court of Human Rights has found that indefinite placement to United Kingdom sex offender registry, which is not made available to general public, is incompatible with offenders right to privacy if the person has no right of review.[184][185] Several other countries have followed examples set by the US in creating and publishing sex offender registries with similar policies, most notably the United Kingdom and Australia. Those two countries have also been criticized for these actions.

In a 1999 report, Amnesty International said it had "documented patterns of ill-treatment across the U.S., including police beatings, unjustified shootings and the use of dangerous restraint techniques."[186]
According to a 1998 Human Rights Watch report, incidents of police use of excessive force had occurred in cities throughout the U.S., and this behavior goes largely unchecked.[187] An article in USA Today reports that in 2006, 96% of cases referred to the U.S. Justice Department for prosecution by investigative agencies were declined. In 2005, 98% were declined.[188] In 2001, the New York Times reported that the U.S. government is unable or unwilling to collect statistics showing the precise number of people killed by the police or the prevalence of the use of excessive force.[189]
Since 1999, at least 148 people have died in the United States and Canada after being shocked with Tasers by police officers, according to a 2005 ACLU report.[190]
In one case, a handcuffed suspect was tasered nine times by a police officer before dying, and six of those taserings occurred within less than three minutes. The officer was fired and faced the possibility of criminal charges.[191]

Despite safeguards in place around recuritment, some police departments have hired officers who may have histories of poor performance or misconduct in other departments, an issue known as hiring "gypsy cops".[192][193][194][195][196][197]

The practice of taking an arrested person on a perp walk, often handcuffed, through a public place at some point after the arrest, creating an opportunity for the media to take photographs and video of the event has raised civil and human rights concerns.[202]

Certain practices of the United States military and Central Intelligence Agency have been widely condemned domestically and internationally as torture.[205][206] A fierce debate regarding non-standard interrogation techniques[207] exists within the U.S. civilian and military intelligence community, with no general consensus as to what practices under what conditions are acceptable.

Abuse of prisoners is considered a crime in the United States Uniform Code of Military Justice. According to a January 2006 Human Rights First report, there were 45 suspected or confirmed homicides while in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan; "Certainly 8, as many as 12, people were tortured to death."[208]

Detainee handcuffed in the nude to a bed with a pair of panties covering his face.

In 2004, photos showing humiliation and abuse of prisoners were leaked from Abu Ghraib prison, causing a political and media scandal in the US. Forced humiliation of the detainees included, but is not limited to nudity, rape, human piling of nude detainees, masturbation, eating food out of toilets, crawling on hand and knees while American soldiers were sitting on their back sometimes requiring them to bark like dogs, and hooking up electrical wires to fingers, toes, and penises.[209]Bertrand Ramcharan, acting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights stated that while the removal of Saddam Hussein represented "a major contribution to human rights in Iraq" and that the United States had condemned the conduct at Abu Ghraib and pledged to bring violators to justice, "willful killing, torture and inhuman treatment" represented a grave breach of international law and "might be designated as war crimes by a competent tribunal."[210]

In addition to the acts of humiliation, there were more violent claims, such as American soldiers sodomizing detainees (including an event involving an underage boy), an incident where a phosphoric light was broken and the chemicals poured on a detainee, repeated beatings, and threats of death.[209] Six military personnel were charged with prisoner abuse in the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal. The harshest sentence was handed out to Charles Graner, who received a 10-year sentence to be served in a military prison and a demotion to private; the other offenders received lesser sentences.[211]

The severest abuses at Abu Ghraib occurred in the immediate aftermath of a decision by Secretary Rumsfeld to step up the hunt for "actionable intelligence" among Iraqi prisoners. The officer who oversaw intelligence gathering at Guantanamo was brought in to overhaul interrogation practices in Iraq, and teams of interrogators from Guantanamo were sent to Abu Ghraib. The commanding general in Iraq issued orders to "manipulate an internee's emotions and weaknesses." Military police were ordered by military intelligence to "set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses." The captain who oversaw interrogations at the Afghan detention center where two prisoners died in detention posted "Interrogation Rules of Engagement" at Abu Ghraib, authorizing coercive methods (with prior written approval of the military commander) such as the use of military guard dogs to instill fear that violate the Geneva Conventions and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman Degrading Treatment or Punishment.[212]

The June 21, 2004, issue of Newsweek stated that the Bybee memo, a 2002 legal memorandum drafted by former OLC lawyer John Yoo that described what sort of interrogation tactics against suspected terrorists or terrorist affiliates the Bush administration would consider legal, was "... prompted by CIA questions about what to do with a top Qaeda captive, Abu Zubaydah, who had turned uncooperative ... and was drafted after White House meetings convened by George W. Bush's chief counsel, Alberto Gonzales, along with Defense Department general counsel William Haynes and David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney's counsel, who discussed specific interrogation techniques," citing "a source familiar with the discussions." Amongst the methods they found acceptable was waterboarding.[215]

It's a clear-cut case: Waterboarding can without any reservation be labeled as torture. It fulfils all of the four central criteria that according to the United Nations Convention Against Torture (UNCAT) defines an act of torture. First, when water is forced into your lungs in this fashion, in addition to the pain you are likely to experience an immediate and extreme fear of death. You may even suffer a heart attack from the stress or damage to the lungs and brain from inhalation of water and oxygen deprivation. In other words there is no doubt that waterboarding causes severe physical and/or mental suffering – one central element in the UNCAT's definition of torture. In addition the CIA's waterboarding clearly fulfills the three additional definition criteria stated in the Convention for a deed to be labeled torture, since it is 1) done intentionally, 2) for a specific purpose and 3) by a representative of a state – in this case the US.[217]

The CIA director testified that waterboarding has not been used since 2003.[223]

In April 2009, the Obama administration released four memos in which government lawyers from the Bush administration approved tough interrogation methods used against 28 terror suspects. The rough tactics range from waterboarding (simulated drowning) to keeping suspects naked and denying them solid food.[224]

These memos were accompanied by the Justice Department's release of four Bush-era legal opinions covering (in graphic and extensive detail) the interrogation of 14 high-value terror detainees using harsh techniques beyond waterboarding. These additional techniques include keeping detainees in a painful standing position for long periods (Used often, once for 180 hours),[225] using a plastic neck collar to slam detainees into walls, keeping the detainee's cell cold for long periods, beating and kicking the detainee, insects placed in a confinement box (the suspect had a fear of insects), sleep-deprivation, prolonged shackling, and threats to a detainee's family. One of the memos also authorized a method for combining multiple techniques.[224][226]

Details from the memos also included the number of times that techniques such as waterboarding were used. A footnote said that one detainee was waterboarded 83 times in one month, while another was waterboarded 183 times in a month.[227][228] This may have gone beyond even what was allowed by the CIA's own directives, which limit waterboarding to 12 times a day.[228]
The Fox News website carried reports from an unnamed U.S. official who claimed that these were the number of pourings, not the number of sessions.[229]

Physicians for Human Rights has accused the Bush administration of conducting illegal human experiments and unethical medical research during interrogations of suspected terrorists.[230] The group has suggested this activity was a violation of the standards set by the Nuremberg Trials.[231]

The United States maintains a detention center at its military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba where enemy combatants of the war on terror are held. The detention center has been the source of various controversies regarding the legality of the center and the treatment of detainees.[232][233]Amnesty International has called the situation "a human rights scandal" in a series of reports.[234] 775 detainees have been brought to Guantánamo. Of these, many have been released without charge. As of January 2017, 45 detainees remain at Guantanamo.[235] The United States assumed territorial control over Guantánamo Bay under the 1903 Cuban–American Treaty of Relations, which granted the United States a perpetual lease of the area.[236] United States, by virtue of its complete jurisdiction and control, maintains "de facto" sovereignty over this territory, while Cuba retained ultimate sovereignty over the territory. The current government of Cuba regards the U.S. presence in Guantánamo as illegal and insists the Cuban-American Treaty was obtained by threat of force in violation of international law.[237]

In 2005, Amnesty International expressed alarm at the erosion in civil liberties since the 9/11 attacks. According to Amnesty International:

The Guantánamo Bay detention camp has become a symbol of the United States administration's refusal to put human rights and the rule of law at the heart of its response to the atrocities of September 11, 2001. It has become synonymous with the United States executive's pursuit of unfettered power, and has become firmly associated with the systematic denial of human dignity and resort to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment that has marked the U.S.'s detentions and interrogations in the "war on terror".[239]

Amnesty International also condemned the Guantánamo facility as "... the gulag of our times," which raised heated conversation in the United States. The purported legal status of "unlawful combatants" in those nations currently holding detainees under that name has been the subject of criticism by other nations and international human rights institutions including Human Rights Watch and the International Committee of the Red Cross. The ICRC, in response to the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan, published a paper on the subject.[240] HRW cites two sergeants and a captain accusing U.S. troops of torturing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.[241]

Foreign nationals are occasionally captured and abducted outside of the United States and transferred to secret US administered detention facilities, sometimes being held incommunicado for periods of months or years, a process known as extraordinary rendition.

According to The New Yorker, "The most common destinations for rendered suspects are Egypt, Morocco, Syria, and Jordan, all of which have been cited for human-rights violations by the State Department, and are known to torture suspects."[248]

In November 2001, Yaser Esam Hamdi, a U.S. citizen, was captured by Afghan Northern Alliance forces in Konduz, Afghanistan, amongst hundreds of surrendering Taliban fighters and was transferred into U.S. custody. The U.S. government alleged that Hamdi was there fighting for the Taliban, while Hamdi, through his father, has claimed that he was merely there as a relief worker and was mistakenly captured. Hamdi was transferred into CIA custody and transferred to the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, but when it was discovered that he was a U.S. citizen, he was transferred to naval brig in Norfolk, Virginia and then he was transferred brig in Charleston, South Carolina. The Bush Administration identified him as an unlawful combatant and denied him access to an attorney or the court system, despite his Fifth Amendment right to due process. In 2002 Hamdi's father filed a habeas corpus petition, the Judge ruled in Hamdi's favor and required he be allowed a public defender; however, on appeal the decision was reversed. In 2004, in the case of Hamdi v. Rumsfeld the U.S. Supreme court reversed the dismissal of a habeas corpus petition and ruled detainees who are U.S. citizens must have the ability to challenge their detention before an impartial judge.

In December 2004, Khalid El-Masri, a German citizen, was apprehended by Macedonian authorities when traveling to Skopje because his name was similar to Khalid al-Masri, an alleged mentor to the al-Qaeda Hamburg cell. After being held in a motel in Macedonia for over three weeks he was transferred to the CIA and extradited to Afghanistan. While held in Afghanistan, El-Masri claims he was sodomized, beaten, and repeatedly interrogated about alleged terrorist ties.[249] After being in custody for five months, Condoleezza Rice learned of his detention and ordered his release. El-Masri was released at night on a desolate road in Albania, without apology or funds to return home. He was intercepted by Albanian guards, who believed he was a terrorist due to his haggard and unkept appearance. He was subsequently reunited with his wife who had returned to her family in Lebanon with their children because she thought her husband had abandoned them. Using isotope analysis, scientists at the Bavarian archive for geology in Munich analyzed his hair and verified that he was malnourished during his disappearance.[250]

In 2007, U.S. President Bush signed an Executive order banning the use of torture in the CIA's interrogation program.[251]

According to Canadian historian Michael Ignatieff, during and after the Cold War, the United States placed greater emphasis than other nations on human rights as part of its foreign policy, awarded foreign aid to facilitate human rights progress, and annually assessed the human rights records of other national governments.[40]

The U.S. Department of State publishes a yearly report "Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The U.S. Record" in compliance with a 2002 law that requires the Department to report on actions taken by the U.S. Government to encourage respect for human rights.[255] It also publishes yearly "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices."[256] In 2006 the United States created a "Human Rights Defenders Fund" and "Freedom Awards."[257] The "Ambassadorial Roundtable Series", created in 2006, are informal discussions between newly confirmed U.S. Ambassadors and human rights and democracy non-governmental organizations.[258] The United States also support democracy and human rights through several other tools.[259]

In 2006 the award went to Joshua Morris of the embassy in Mauritania who recognized necessary democracy and human rights improvements in Mauritania and made democracy promotion one of his primary responsibilities. He persuaded the Government of Mauritania to re-open voter registration lists to an additional 85,000 citizens, which includes a significant number of Afro-Mauritanian minority individuals. He also organized and managed the largest youth-focused democracy project in Mauritania in 5 years.

Nathaniel Jensen of the embassy in Vietnam was runner-up. He successfully advanced the human rights agenda on several fronts, including organizing the resumption of a bilateral Human Rights Dialogue, pushing for the release of Vietnam's prisoners of concern, and dedicating himself to improving religion freedom in northern Vietnam.[260]

Under legislation by congress, the United States declared that countries utilizing child soldiers may no longer be eligible for US military assistance, in an attempt to end this practice.[261]

The US's ratification of the ICCPR was done with five reservations – or limits – on the treaty, 5 understandings and 4 declarations. Among these is the rejection of sections of the treaty that prohibit capital punishment.[268][269] Included in the Senate's ratification was the declaration that "the provisions of Article 1 through 27 of the Covenant are not self-executing",[270] and in a Senate Executive Report stated that the declaration was meant to "clarify that the Covenant will not create a private cause of action in U.S. Courts."[271] This way of ratifying the treaty was criticized as incompatible with the Supremacy Clause by Louis Henkin.[272]

As a reservation that is "incompatible with the object and purpose" of a treaty is void as a matter of international law, Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, art. 19, 1155 U.N.T.S. 331 (entered into force January 27, 1980) (specifying conditions under which signatory States can offer "reservations"), there is some issue as to whether the non-self-execution declaration is even legal under domestic law. At any rate, the United States is but a signatory in name only.

The US rejected the Rome Statute after its attempts to include the nation of origin as a party in international proceedings failed, and after certain requests were not met, including recognition of gender issues, "rigorous" qualifications for judges, viable definitions of crimes, protection of national security information that might be sought by the court, and jurisdiction of the UN Security Council to halt court proceedings in special cases.[273] Since the passage of the statute, the US has actively encouraged nations around the world to sign "bilateral immunity agreements" prohibiting the surrender of US personnel before the ICC[274] and actively attempted to undermine the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.[275] The US Congress also passed a law, American Service-Members' Protection Act (ASPA) authorizing the use of military force to free any US personnel that are brought before the court rather than its own court system.[276][277] Human Rights Watch criticized the United States for removing itself from the Statute.[278]

I think it is a very backwards step. It is unprecedented which I think to an extent smacks of pettiness in the sense that it is not going to affect in any way the establishment of the international criminal court ... The US have really isolated themselves and are putting themselves into bed with the likes of China, the Yemen and other undemocratic countries.[278]

While the US has maintained that it will "bring to justice those who commit genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes," its primary objections to the Rome Statute have revolved around the issues of jurisdiction and process. A US ambassador for War Crimes Issues to the UN Security Council said to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee that because the Rome Statute requires only one nation to submit to the ICC, and that this nation can be the country in which an alleged crime was committed rather than defendant's country of origin, U.S. military personnel and US foreign peaceworkers in more than 100 countries could be tried in international court without the consent of the US. The ambassador states that "most atrocities are committed internally and most internal conflicts are between warring parties of the same nationality, the worst offenders of international humanitarian law can choose never to join the treaty and be fully insulated from its reach absent a Security Council referral. Yet multinational peacekeeping forces operating in a country that has joined the treaty can be exposed to the court's jurisdiction even if the country of the individual peacekeeper has not joined the treaty."[273]

Where the signature is subject to ratification, acceptance or approval, the signature does not establish the consent to be bound. However, it is a means of authentication and expresses the willingness of the signatory state to continue the treaty-making process. The signature qualifies the signatory state to proceed to ratification, acceptance or approval. It also creates an obligation to refrain, in good faith, from acts that would defeat the object and the purpose of the treaty.[279]

The U.S. has not ratified the following international human rights treaties:[263]

Studies have found that the New York Times coverage of worldwide human rights violations is seriously biased, predominantly focusing on the human rights violations in nations where there is clear U.S. involvement, while having relatively little coverage of the human rights violations in other nations.[283][284]Amnesty International's Secretary General Irene Khan explains, "If we focus on the U.S. it's because we believe that the U.S. is a country whose enormous influence and power has to be used constructively ... When countries like the U.S. are seen to undermine or ignore human rights, it sends a very powerful message to others."[285]

According to Freedom in the World, an annual report by US based think-tank Freedom House, which rates political rights and civil liberties, in 2007, the United States was ranked "Free" (the highest possible rating), together with 92 other countries.

The Polity data series, which rate regime and authority characteristics, covering the years 1800-2004, has ranked the United States with the highest possible rating since 1871.[286]

According to the Economist Magazine's Democracy Index (2016), the US ranks 21 out of 167 nations. In 2016 and 2017, the United States is classified as a "Flawed Democracy" by Democracy Index and received a score of 8.24 out of 10.00 with respect to civil liberties.[287][288] This is the first time the United States has been downgraded from a "Full Democracy" to a "Flawed Democracy" since The Economist began publishing the Democracy Index report.[289][290]

According to the annual Privacy International index of 2007, the United States was ranked an "endemic surveillance society", scoring only 1.5 out of 5 privacy points.[295]

According to the Gallup International Millennium Survey, the United States ranked 23rd in citizens' perception of human rights observance when its citizens were asked, "In general, do you think that human rights are being fully respected, partially respected or are they not being respected at all in your country?"[296]

^The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, supreme law of international human rights of the United Nations: Article 25: 1: Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

^See, e.g., "Article VI". U.S. Constitution. 1787. The Senators and Representative before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

^Foster v. Neilson, 27 U.S. 253, 314-15 (1829) U.S. Supreme Court, Chief Justice Marshall writing: "Our constitution declares a treaty to be the law of the land. It is, consequently, to be regarded in courts of justice as equivalent to an act of the legislature, whenever it operates of itself without the aid of any legislative provision. But when the terms of the stipulation import a contract, when either of the parties engages to perform a particular act, the treaty addresses itself to the political, not the judicial department, and the legislature must execute the contract before it can become a rule for the Court." at 314, cited in Martin International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law et al.

^Lauren, Paul Gordon (2003). "My Brother's and Sister's Keeper: Visions and the Birth of Human Rights". The Evolution of International Human Rights: Visions Seen (Second ed.). University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 33. ISBN0-8122-1854-X.

^Benezet also stated that "Liberty is the right of every human creature, as soon as he breathes the vital air. And no human law can deprive him of the right which he derives from the law of nature." Grimm, Robert T., Anthony Benezet (1716–1784), Notable American Philanthropists: Biographies of Giving and Volunteering, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002, ISBN1-57356-340-4, pages 26-28

^Vorenberg, Michael, Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment, Cambridge University Press, 2001, page 1

^ abLieberman, Jethro Koller (1999). A practical companion to the Constitution: how the Supreme Court has ruled on issues from abortion to zoning. University of California Press. p. 382. ISBN0-520-21280-0.

^Lieberman, Jethro Koller, A practical companion to the Constitution: how the Supreme Court has ruled on issues from abortion to zoning, University of California Press, 1999, ISBN0-520-21280-0, page 6

^Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations 1986 Article 18. [2]"Archived copy". Archived from the original on May 11, 2008. Retrieved May 8, 2008.

^26. The Committee, while taking note of the various rules and regulations prohibiting discrimination in the provision of disaster relief and emergency assistance, remains concerned about information that poor people and in particular African-Americans, were disadvantaged by the rescue and evacuation plans implemented when Hurricane Katrina hit the United States of America, and continue to be disadvantaged under the reconstruction plans. (articles 6 and 26) The State party should review its practices and policies to ensure the full implementation of its obligation to protect life and of the prohibition of discrimination, whether direct or indirect, as well as of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, in the areas of disaster prevention and preparedness, emergency assistance and relief measures. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it should increase its efforts to ensure that the rights of poor people and in particular African-Americans, are fully taken into consideration in the reconstruction plans with regard to access to housing, education and health care. The Committee wishes to be informed about the results of the inquiries into the alleged failure to evacuate prisoners at the Parish prison, as well as the allegations that New Orleans residents were not permitted by law enforcement officials to cross the Greater New Orleans Bridge to Gretna, Louisiana. See: "Concluding Observations of the Human Rights Committee on the Second and Third U.S. Reports to the Committee (2006)."Human Rights Committee. University of Minnesota Human Rights Library. July 28, 2006.

Shapiro, Steven R.; Human Rights Watch; American Civil Liberties Union (1993). Human Rights Violations in the United States: A Report on U.S. Compliance with The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Human Rights Watch. ISBN1-56432-122-3.

1.
Federal government of the United States
–
The Federal Government of the United States is the national government of the United States, a republic in North America, composed of 50 states, one district, Washington, D. C. and several territories. The federal government is composed of three branches, legislative, executive, and judicial, whose powers are vested by the U. S. Constitution in the Congress, the President, and the courts, including the Supreme Court. The powers and duties of these branches are defined by acts of Congress. The full name of the republic is United States of America, no other name appears in the Constitution, and this is the name that appears on money, in treaties, and in legal cases to which it is a party. The terms Government of the United States of America or United States Government are often used in documents to represent the federal government as distinct from the states collectively. In casual conversation or writing, the term Federal Government is often used, the terms Federal and National in government agency or program names generally indicate affiliation with the federal government. Because the seat of government is in Washington, D. C, Washington is commonly used as a metonym for the federal government. The outline of the government of the United States is laid out in the Constitution, the government was formed in 1789, making the United States one of the worlds first, if not the first, modern national constitutional republics. The United States government is based on the principles of federalism and republicanism, some make the case for expansive federal powers while others argue for a more limited role for the central government in relation to individuals, the states or other recognized entities. For example, while the legislative has the power to create law, the President nominates judges to the nations highest judiciary authority, but those nominees must be approved by Congress. The Supreme Court, in its turn, has the power to invalidate as unconstitutional any law passed by the Congress and these and other examples are examined in more detail in the text below. The United States Congress is the branch of the federal government. It is bicameral, comprising the House of Representatives and the Senate, the House currently consists of 435 voting members, each of whom represents a congressional district. The number of each state has in the House is based on each states population as determined in the most recent United States Census. All 435 representatives serve a two-year term, each state receives a minimum of one representative in the House. There is no limit on the number of terms a representative may serve, in addition to the 435 voting members, there are six non-voting members, consisting of five delegates and one resident commissioner. In contrast, the Senate is made up of two senators from each state, regardless of population, there are currently 100 senators, who each serve six-year terms

2.
United States Constitution
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The United States Constitution is the supreme law of the United States of America. The Constitution, originally comprising seven articles, delineates the national frame of government, Articles Four, Five and Six entrench concepts of federalism, describing the rights and responsibilities of state governments and of the states in relationship to the federal government. Article Seven establishes the procedure used by the thirteen States to ratify it. In general, the first ten amendments, known collectively as the Bill of Rights, offer specific protections of individual liberty, the majority of the seventeen later amendments expand individual civil rights protections. Others address issues related to federal authority or modify government processes and procedures, Amendments to the United States Constitution, unlike ones made to many constitutions worldwide, are appended to the document. All four pages of the original U. S, according to the United States Senate, The Constitutions first three words—We the People—affirm that the government of the United States exists to serve its citizens. From September 5,1774 to March 1,1781, the Continental Congress functioned as the government of the United States. The process of selecting the delegates for the First and Second Continental Congresses underscores the revolutionary role of the people of the colonies in establishing a governing body. The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was the first constitution of the United States and it was drafted by the Second Continental Congress from mid-1776 through late-1777, and ratification by all 13 states was completed by early 1781. Under the Articles of Confederation, the governments power was quite limited. The Confederation Congress could make decisions, but lacked enforcement powers, implementation of most decisions, including modifications to the Articles, required unanimous approval of all thirteen state legislatures. The Continental Congress could print money but the currency was worthless, Congress could borrow money, but couldnt pay it back. No state paid all their U. S. taxes, some paid nothing, some few paid an amount equal to interest on the national debt owed to their citizens, but no more. No interest was paid on debt owed foreign governments, by 1786, the United States would default on outstanding debts as their dates came due. Internationally, the Articles of Confederation did little to enhance the United States ability to defend its sovereignty, most of the troops in the 625-man United States Army were deployed facing – but not threatening – British forts on American soil. They had not been paid, some were deserting and others threatening mutiny, spain closed New Orleans to American commerce, U. S. officials protested, but to no effect. Barbary pirates began seizing American ships of commerce, the Treasury had no funds to pay their ransom, if any military crisis required action, the Congress had no credit or taxing power to finance a response. Domestically, the Articles of Confederation was failing to bring unity to the sentiments and interests of the various states

3.
Law of the United States
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The United States Code is the official compilation and codification of general and permanent federal statutory law. Federal law and treaties, so long as they are in accordance with the Constitution, preempt conflicting state and territorial laws in the 50 U. S. states, however, the scope of federal preemption is limited because the scope of federal power is not universal. Indeed, states may grant their citizens broader rights than the federal Constitution as long as they do not infringe on any federal constitutional rights. Thus, most U. S. law consists primarily of state law, which can and does vary greatly from one state to the next. At both the federal and state levels, the law of the United States is largely derived from the law system of English law. However, American law has diverged greatly from its English ancestor both in terms of substance and procedure, and has incorporated a number of civil law innovations. In the United States, the law is derived from five sources, constitutional law, statutory law, treaties, administrative regulations, where Congress enacts a statute that conflicts with the Constitution, the Supreme Court may find that law unconstitutional and declare it invalid. Notably, a statute does not disappear automatically merely because it has been found unconstitutional, many federal and state statutes have remained on the books for decades after they were ruled to be unconstitutional. However, under the principle of stare decisis, no sensible lower court will enforce an unconstitutional statute, conversely, any court that refuses to enforce a constitutional statute will risk reversal by the Supreme Court. The United States and most Commonwealth countries are heirs to the common law tradition of English law. Certain practices traditionally allowed under English common law were expressly outlawed by the Constitution, such as bills of attainder, as common law courts, U. S. courts have inherited the principle of stare decisis. The actual substance of English law was received into the United States in several ways. Some reception statutes impose a specific date for reception, such as the date of a colonys founding. Thus, contemporary U. S. Second, a number of important British statutes in effect at the time of the Revolution have been independently reenacted by U. S. states. Two examples that many lawyers will recognize are the Statute of Frauds, such English statutes are still regularly cited in contemporary American cases interpreting their modern American descendants. However, it is important to understand that despite the presence of reception statutes, early on, American courts, even after the Revolution, often did cite contemporary English cases. But citations to English decisions gradually disappeared during the 19th century as American courts developed their own principles to resolve the problems of the American people. The number of published volumes of American reports soared from eighteen in 1810 to over 8,000 by 1910

4.
Taxation in the United States
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The United States of America is a federal republic with separate federal, state, and local government. Taxes are imposed in the United States at each of these levels and these include taxes on income, payroll, property, sales, capital gains, dividends, imports, estates and gifts, as well as various fees. In 2010 taxes collected by federal, state and municipal governments amounted to 24. 8% of GDP, in the OECD, only Chile and Mexico taxed less as a share of GDP. However, taxes fall much more heavily on income than on capital income. Divergent taxes and subsidies for different forms of income and spending can also constitute a form of taxation of some activities over others. For example, individual spending on education can be said to be taxed at a high rate. Taxes are imposed on net income of individuals and corporations by the federal, most state, citizens and residents are taxed on worldwide income and allowed a credit for foreign taxes. Income subject to tax is determined under tax accounting rules, not financial accounting principles, most business expenses reduce taxable income, though limits apply to a few expenses. State rules for determining taxable income often differ from federal rules, Federal tax rates vary from 10% to 39. 6% of taxable income. State and local tax rates vary widely by jurisdiction, from 0% to 13. 30% of income, state taxes are generally treated as a deductible expense for federal tax computation. In 2013, the top income tax rate for a high-income California resident would be 52. 9%. The United States is one of two countries in the world that taxes its non-resident citizens on worldwide income, in the manner and rates as residents. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the payment of tax in the case of Cook v. Tait,265 U. S.47. Payroll taxes are imposed by the federal and all state governments and these include Social Security and Medicare taxes imposed on both employers and employees, at a combined rate of 15. 3%. Social Security tax applies only to the first $106,800 of wages in 2009 through 2011, however, benefits are only accrued on the first $106,800 of wages. Employers must withhold income taxes on wages, an unemployment tax and certain other levies apply to employers. Payroll taxes have increased as a share of federal revenue since the 1950s. Property taxes are imposed by most local governments and many special purpose authorities based on the market value of property

5.
United States Congress
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The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States consisting of two chambers, the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the Capitol in Washington, D. C, both senators and representatives are chosen through direct election, though vacancies in the Senate may be filled by a gubernatorial appointment. Members are usually affiliated to the Republican Party or to the Democratic Party, Congress has 535 voting members,435 Representatives and 100 Senators. The House of Representatives has six non-voting members in addition to its 435 voting members and these members can, however, sit on congressional committees and introduce legislation. Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, the members of the House of Representatives serve two-year terms representing the people of a single constituency, known as a district. Congressional districts are apportioned to states by using the United States Census results. Each state, regardless of population or size, has two senators, currently, there are 100 senators representing the 50 states. Each senator is elected at-large in their state for a term, with terms staggered. The House and Senate are equal partners in the legislative process—legislation cannot be enacted without the consent of both chambers, however, the Constitution grants each chamber some unique powers. The Senate ratifies treaties and approves presidential appointments while the House initiates revenue-raising bills, the House initiates impeachment cases, while the Senate decides impeachment cases. A two-thirds vote of the Senate is required before a person can be forcibly removed from office. The term Congress can also refer to a meeting of the legislature. A Congress covers two years, the current one, the 115th Congress, began on January 3,2017, the Congress starts and ends on the third day of January of every odd-numbered year. Members of the Senate are referred to as senators, members of the House of Representatives are referred to as representatives, congressmen, or congresswomen. One analyst argues that it is not a solely reactive institution but has played a role in shaping government policy and is extraordinarily sensitive to public pressure. Several academics described Congress, Congress reflects us in all our strengths, Congress is the governments most representative body. Congress is essentially charged with reconciling our many points of view on the public policy issues of the day. —Smith, Roberts, and Wielen Congress is constantly changing and is constantly in flux, most incumbents seek re-election, and their historical likelihood of winning subsequent elections exceeds 90 percent

6.
United States House of Representatives
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The United States House of Representatives is the lower chamber of the United States Congress which, along with the Senate, composes the legislature of the United States. The composition and powers of the House are established by Article One of the United States Constitution, since its inception in 1789, all representatives are elected popularly. The total number of voting representatives is fixed by law at 435, the House is charged with the passage of federal legislation, known as bills, which, after concurrence by the Senate, are sent to the President for consideration. The presiding officer is the Speaker of the House, who is elected by the members thereof and is traditionally the leader of the controlling party. He or she and other leaders are chosen by the Democratic Caucus or the Republican Conferences. The House meets in the wing of the United States Capitol. Under the Articles of Confederation, the Congress of the Confederation was a body in which each state was equally represented. All states except Rhode Island agreed to send delegates, the issue of how to structure Congress was one of the most divisive among the founders during the Convention. The House is referred to as the house, with the Senate being the upper house. Both houses approval is necessary for the passage of legislation, the Virginia Plan drew the support of delegates from large states such as Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, as it called for representation based on population. The smaller states, however, favored the New Jersey Plan, the Constitution was ratified by the requisite number of states in 1788, but its implementation was set for March 4,1789. The House began work on April 1,1789, when it achieved a quorum for the first time, during the first half of the 19th century, the House was frequently in conflict with the Senate over regionally divisive issues, including slavery. The North was much more populous than the South, and therefore dominated the House of Representatives, However, the North held no such advantage in the Senate, where the equal representation of states prevailed. Regional conflict was most pronounced over the issue of slavery, One example of a provision repeatedly supported by the House but blocked by the Senate was the Wilmot Proviso, which sought to ban slavery in the land gained during the Mexican–American War. Conflict over slavery and other issues persisted until the Civil War, the war culminated in the Souths defeat and in the abolition of slavery. Because all southern senators except Andrew Johnson resigned their seats at the beginning of the war, the years of Reconstruction that followed witnessed large majorities for the Republican Party, which many Americans associated with the Unions victory in the Civil War and the ending of slavery. The Reconstruction period ended in about 1877, the ensuing era, the Democratic and the Republican Party held majorities in the House at various times. The late 19th and early 20th centuries also saw an increase in the power of the Speaker of the House

7.
Paul Ryan
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Paul Davis Ryan Jr. is an American politician who is the 54th and current Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Ryan is a member of the Republican Party who has served as the U. S, Representative for Wisconsins 1st congressional district since 1999. Ryan previously served as Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, from January 3 to October 29,2015 and he was the Republican Party nominee for Vice President of the United States, running alongside former Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts in the 2012 election. Ryan, together with Democratic Senator Patty Murray, negotiated the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 and he named lobbyist John David Hoppe as his Chief of Staff. Paul Davis Ryan, Jr. was born in Janesville, Wisconsin, the youngest of four children of Elizabeth A. Betty, who became an interior designer, and Paul Davis Ryan. His father was of Irish ancestry and his mother of German, one of Ryans paternal ancestors settled in Wisconsin prior to the Civil War. His great-grandfather, Patrick William Ryan, founded a company in 1884. Ryans grandfather, Stanley M. Ryan, was appointed U. S. Attorney for the Western District of Wisconsin, as class president Ryan was a representative of the student body on the school board. Following his second year, Ryan took a job working the grill at McDonalds and he was on his high schools ski, track, and varsity soccer teams and played basketball in a Catholic recreational league. He participated in academic and social clubs including the Model United Nations. Ryan and his family went on hiking and skiing trips to the Colorado Rocky Mountains. When he was 16, Ryan found his 55-year-old father lying dead in bed of a heart attack. Following the death of his father, Ryans grandmother moved in with the family, from the time of his fathers death until his 18th birthday, Ryan received Social Security survivors benefits, which were saved for his college education. His mother remarried, to Bruce Douglas and he often visited the office of libertarian professor Richard Hart to discuss the theories of these economists and of Ayn Rand. Hart introduced Ryan to National Review, and with Harts recommendation Ryan began an internship in the D. C. office of Wisconsin Senator Bob Kasten where he worked with Kastens foreign affairs adviser and he attended the Washington Semester program at American University. Ryan worked summers as a salesman for Oscar Mayer and once got to drive the Wienermobile, Ryan was a member of the College Republicans, and volunteered for the congressional campaign of John Boehner. He was a member of the Delta Tau Delta social fraternity, Betty Ryan reportedly urged her son to accept a congressional position as a legislative aide in Senator Kastens office, which he did after graduating in 1992. In his early working on Capitol Hill, Ryan supplemented his income by working as a waiter, as a fitness trainer

8.
Kevin McCarthy (California politician)
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Kevin Owen McCarthy is an American congressman from Bakersfield, California. He serves in the United States House of Representatives for Californias 23rd district, a Republican, he was formerly chairman of the California Young Republicans and the Young Republican National Federation. McCarthy worked as director for U. S. Representative Bill Thomas, and in 2000 was elected as a trustee to the Kern Community College District and he then served in the California State Assembly from 2002 to 2006, the last two years as minority leader. When Thomas retired from the House of Representatives in 2006, McCarthy ran to succeed him and won the election. After announcing his candidacy for Speaker on September 28,2015, he dropped out of the race on October 8 after a gaffe where he said, Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, but we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. But no one would have any of that had happened, had we not fought. McCarthy was born in Bakersfield, California, the son of Roberta Darlene, a homemaker, and Owen McCarthy, McCarthy is a fourth-generation resident of Kern County. He is the first Republican in his family, as his parents were members of the Democratic Party. At the age of 19, he opened his first business and he subsequently sold the deli to attend California State University, Bakersfield, where he obtained a B. S. in marketing in 1989 and an M. B. A. in 1994. In 1995, he was chairman of the California Young Republicans, from 1999 to 2001, he was chairman of the Young Republican National Federation. From the late 1990s until 2000, he was director for U. S. Representative Bill Thomas, who, at the time, chaired the House Ways, McCarthy won his first election in 2000, as a Kern Community College District trustee. McCarthy was elected to the California State Assembly in 2002, becoming Republican floor leader during his term in 2003. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 2006, McCarthy entered the Republican primary for Californias 22nd District after his former boss, Bill Thomas, announced his retirement. He won the three-way Republican primary--the real contest in this heavily Republican district--with 85 percent of the vote and he then won the general election with 70. 7% of the vote. McCarthy was unopposed for a second term and he was virtually unopposed, winning 98. 8% of the vote, with opposition coming only from a write-in candidate. Redistricting before the 2012 election resulted in McCarthys district being renumbered as the 23rd District and it became somewhat more compact, losing its share of the Central Coast while picking up large parts of Tulare County

9.
Nancy Pelosi
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Nancy Patricia DAlesandro Pelosi is an American politician who is the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, representing Californias 12th congressional district. A member of the Democratic Party, Pelosi represents Californias 12th congressional district, the district was numbered as the 5th during Pelosis first three terms in the House, and as the 8th from 1993 to 2013. She served as the House Minority Whip from 2002 to 2003, Pelosi is the first woman, the first Californian and first Italian-American to lead a major party in Congress. On November 17,2010, Pelosi was elected as the Democratic Leader by House Democrats, Pelosi is Italian-American and was born Nancy Patricia DAlesandro in Baltimore, Maryland. She is the youngest of six children of Annunciata M. Nancy, who was born in Campobasso, South Italy, on 25 March 1909, Congressman from Maryland and a Mayor of Baltimore. Pelosis brother, Thomas DAlesandro III, also a Democrat, was mayor of Baltimore from 1967 to 1971, Pelosi was involved with politics from an early age. In her outgoing remarks as the 60th Speaker of the House and she graduated from the Institute of Notre Dame, a Catholic all-girls high school in Baltimore, and from Trinity College in Washington, D. C. in 1962 with a B. A. in political science. Pelosi interned for Senator Daniel Brewster alongside future House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and she met Paul Frank Pelosi while she was attending Trinity College. They married in Baltimore at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen on September 7,1963, after moving to San Francisco, Pelosi worked her way up in Democratic politics. She became a friend of one of the leaders of the California Democratic Party, in 1976, Pelosi was elected as a Democratic National Committee member from California, a position she would hold until 1996. She was elected as party chair for Northern California on January 30,1977, and for the California Democratic Party, Pelosi was appointed Finance Chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the campaign arm of the U. S. Senate Democrats, in 1985. That same year, she ran to succeed Chuck Manatt as chair of the Democratic National Committee, Pelosi left her post as DSCC finance chair in 1986. Phillip Burton died in 1983 and was succeeded by his wife, in late 1986, Sala became ill with cancer and decided not to run for reelection in 1988. She picked Pelosi as her successor, guaranteeing her the support of the Burtons contacts. Sala died on February 1,1987, just a month after being sworn in for a full term. Pelosi represents one of the safest Democratic districts in the country, Democrats have held the seat since 1949 and Republicans, who currently make up only 13 percent of registered voters in the district, have not made a serious bid for the seat since the early 1960s. She won the seat in her own right in 1988 and has been reelected 10 more times with no substantive opposition and she has not participated in candidates debates since her 1987 race against Harriet Ross. The strongest challenge Pelosi has faced was in 2008 when anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan polled 16%, in the House, she served on the Appropriations and Intelligence Committees, and was the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee until her election as Minority Leader

10.
United States Senate
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The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress which, along with the House of Representatives, the lower chamber, composes the legislature of the United States. The composition and powers of the Senate are established by Article One of the United States Constitution. S. From 1789 until 1913, Senators were appointed by the legislatures of the states represented, following the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913. The Senate chamber is located in the wing of the Capitol, in Washington. It further has the responsibility of conducting trials of those impeached by the House, in the early 20th century, the practice of majority and minority parties electing their floor leaders began, although they are not constitutional officers. This idea of having one chamber represent people equally, while the other gives equal representation to states regardless of population, was known as the Connecticut Compromise, there was also a desire to have two Houses that could act as an internal check on each other. One was intended to be a Peoples House directly elected by the people, the other was intended to represent the states to such extent as they retained their sovereignty except for the powers expressly delegated to the national government. The Senate was thus not designed to serve the people of the United States equally, the Constitution provides that the approval of both chambers is necessary for the passage of legislation. First convened in 1789, the Senate of the United States was formed on the example of the ancient Roman Senate, the name is derived from the senatus, Latin for council of elders. James Madison made the comment about the Senate, In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people. An agrarian law would take place. If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation, landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority, the senate, therefore, ought to be this body, and to answer these purposes, the people ought to have permanency and stability. The Constitution stipulates that no constitutional amendment may be created to deprive a state of its equal suffrage in the Senate without that states consent, the District of Columbia and all other territories are not entitled to representation in either House of the Congress. The District of Columbia elects two senators, but they are officials of the D. C. city government. The United States has had 50 states since 1959, thus the Senate has had 100 senators since 1959. In 1787, Virginia had roughly ten times the population of Rhode Island, whereas today California has roughly 70 times the population of Wyoming and this means some citizens are effectively two orders of magnitude better represented in the Senate than those in other states. Seats in the House of Representatives are approximately proportionate to the population of each state, before the adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913, Senators were elected by the individual state legislatures

11.
Vice President of the United States
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The executive power of both the vice president and the president is granted under Article Two, Section One of the Constitution. The vice president is elected, together with the president. The Office of the Vice President of the United States assists, as the president of the United States Senate, the vice president votes only when it is necessary to break a tie. Additionally, pursuant to the Twelfth Amendment, the president presides over the joint session of Congress when it convenes to count the vote of the Electoral College. Currently, the president is usually seen as an integral part of a presidents administration. The Constitution does not expressly assign the office to any one branch, causing a dispute among scholars whether it belongs to the executive branch, the legislative branch, or both. The modern view of the president as a member of the executive branch is due in part to the assignment of executive duties to the vice president by either the president or Congress. Mike Pence of Indiana is the 48th and current vice president and he assumed office on January 20,2017. The formation of the office of vice president resulted directly from the compromise reached at the Philadelphia Convention which created the Electoral College, the delegates at Philadelphia agreed that each state would receive a number of presidential electors equal to the sum of that states allocation of Representatives and Senators. The delegates assumed that electors would typically choose to favor any candidate from their state over candidates from other states, under a plurality election process, this would tend to result in electing candidates solely from the largest states. Consequently, the delegates agreed that presidents must be elected by a majority of the number of electors. To guard against such stratagems, the Philadelphia delegates specified that the first runner-up presidential candidate would become vice president, the process for selecting the vice president was later modified in the Twelfth Amendment. Each elector still receives two votes, but now one of those votes is for president, while the other is for vice president. The requirement that one of those votes be cast for a candidate not from the electors own state remains in effect. S, other statutorily granted roles include membership of both the National Security Council and the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. As President of the Senate, the president has two primary duties, to cast a vote in the event of a Senate deadlock and to preside over. For example, in the first half of 2001, the Senators were divided 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats and Dick Cheneys tie-breaking vote gave the Republicans the Senate majority, as President of the Senate, the vice president oversees procedural matters and may cast a tie-breaking vote. As President of the Senate, John Adams cast 29 tie-breaking votes that was surpassed by John C. Calhoun with 31. Adamss votes protected the presidents sole authority over the removal of appointees, influenced the location of the national capital, on at least one occasion Adams persuaded senators to vote against legislation he opposed, and he frequently addressed the Senate on procedural and policy matters

12.
Mike Pence
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Michael Richard Mike Pence is an American politician, lawyer, and the 48th Vice President of the United States. He previously served as the 50th Governor of Indiana from 2013 to 2017, born and raised in Columbus, Indiana, Pence graduated from Hanover College and earned a law degree from the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law before entering private practice. After losing two bids for a U. S. congressional seat in 1988 and 1990, he became a conservative radio and he served as the chairman of the House Republican Conference from 2009 to 2011. Pence positioned himself as an ideologue and supporter of the Tea Party movement, noting he was a Christian, a conservative. Pence signed bills intended to restrict abortions, including one that prohibited abortions if the reason for the procedure was the race, gender. He later signed an additional bill acting as an amendment intended to protect LGBT people. Michael Richard Mike Pence was born June 7,1959, in Columbus, Indiana, one of six children of Nancy Jane and Edward J. Pence and his family were Irish Catholic Democrats. He was named after his grandfather, Richard Michael Cawley, who emigrated from County Sligo, Ireland, to the United States through Ellis Island and became a bus driver in Chicago and his maternal grandmothers parents were from Doonbeg, County Clare. Pence graduated from Columbus North High School in 1977 and he earned a BA degree in history from Hanover College in 1981, and a JD degree from the Indiana Universitys Robert H. McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis in 1986. While at Hanover, Pence joined the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, after graduating from Hanover, Pence was an admissions counselor at the college from 1981 to 1983. In his childhood and early adulthood, Pence was a Roman Catholic, kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. While in college, Pence became an evangelical, born-again Christian, after graduating from law school in 1986, Pence was an attorney in private practice. He ran unsuccessfully for a seat in 1988 and in 1990. He became the president of the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, a self-described free-market think tank in 1991, Pence left the Indiana Policy Review Foundation in 1993, a year after beginning to host The Mike Pence Show, a talk radio program based in WRCR-FM in Rushville, Indiana. Pence called himself Rush Limbaugh on decaf since he considered himself politically conservative while not as outspoken as Limbaugh, the show was syndicated by Network Indiana and aired weekdays 9 a. m. to noon on 18 stations throughout the state, including WIBC in Indianapolis. From 1995 to 1999, Pence also hosted a political talk show from Indianapolis. In 1988, Pence ran for Congress against Democratic incumbent Phil Sharp and he ran against Sharp again in 1990, quitting his job in order to work full-time in the campaign, but once again was unsuccessful. During the race, Pence used political donations to pay the mortgage on his house, his credit card bill, groceries, golf tournament fees

13.
President pro tempore of the United States Senate
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The president pro tempore of the United States Senate, also president pro tem, is the second-highest-ranking official of the United States Senate. Unlike the vice president, the president pro tempore is a member of the Senate. Selected by the Senate at large, the president pro tempore has enjoyed many privileges, during the vice presidents absence, the president pro tempore is empowered to preside over Senate sessions. Since 1890, the most senior senator in the majority party has generally chosen to be president pro tempore. This tradition has been observed without interruption since 1949, the current President pro tempore of the Senate is Utah Republican Orrin Hatch. Elected on January 6,2015, he is the 90th person to serve in this office, although the position is in some ways analogous to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the powers of the president pro tempore are far more limited. The president pro tempore is third in the line of succession, following the vice president. Additional duties include appointment of various officers, certain commissions, advisory boards. The officeholder is an ex member of various boards and commissions. With the secretary and sergeant at arms, the president pro tempore maintains order in Senate portions of the Capitol, the office of president pro tempore was established by the Constitution of the United States in 1789. The first president pro tempore, John Langdon, was elected on April 6 the same year, originally, the president pro tempore was appointed on an intermittent basis when the vice president was not present to preside over the Senate. Until the 1960s, it was practice for the vice president to preside over daily Senate sessions. Until 1891, the president pro tempore only served until the return of the president to the chair or the adjournment of a session of Congress. Between 1792 and 1886, the president pro tempore was second in the line of succession following the vice president. When President Andrew Johnson, who had no president, was impeached and tried in 1868. Wades radicalism is thought by historians to be a major reason why the Senate. The President pro tempore and the Speaker of the House were removed from the line of succession in 1886. Both were restored to it in 1947, though this time with the president pro tempore following the speaker, William P. Frye served as President pro tempore from 1896 to 1911 (54th–62nd Congress, a tenure longer than anyone else

14.
Orrin Hatch
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Orrin Grant Hatch is an American politician who is the President pro tempore of the United States Senate, since January 2015. A member of the Republican Party, he serves as the senior United States Senator for Utah, in office since 1977, Hatch is the most senior Republican Senator, the second-most senior Senator overall, after Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who has served since 1975. Having served for 40 years,93 days, Hatch is the longest-serving Republican Senator in U. S. history, Hatch served as either the chairman or ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1993 to 2005. After the Republicans won control of the Senate during the 2014 midterms, Hatch became president pro tempore on January 6,2015, Orrin Grant Hatch was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and raised in the suburb of Baldwin. He is the son of Jesse Hatch, and his wife Helen Frances Hatch and his great-grandfather Jeremiah Hatch was the founder of Vernal, Utah. Hatch, the first in his family to college, attended Brigham Young University. In 1962, he received a J. D. degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. While he was a law student, he worked as a janitor, a worker in the Wood, Wire and Metal Lathers Union. Hatch worked as an attorney in Pittsburgh and in Utah, in 1976, in his first run for public office, Hatch was elected to the United States Senate, defeating Democrat Frank Moss, a three-term incumbent. Among other issues, Hatch criticized Moss 18-year tenure in the Senate, Hatch argued that many Senators, including Moss, had lost touch with their constituents. In 1982 he defeated Mayor of Salt Lake City Ted Wilson by 17 points and he has not faced substantive opposition since, and has been reelected four times, including defeating Brian Moss, Frank Moss son, by 35 points in 1988. In 2007 he became the longest-serving Senator in Utah history, eclipsing previous record-holder Reed Smoot and he was among the first to rally conservative Christians and Mormons to the Republican Party, most notably on the right to life platform which he has supported for 35 years. After the defeat of Utahs Senator Bob Bennett in 2010, conjecture began as to whether six-term Senator Hatch would retire and it was also speculated that Congressman Jason Chaffetz would run against Hatch, though Chaffetz would later decline. In January 2011, Hatch announced his campaign for re-election, later, nine other Republicans, including former State Senator Dan Liljenquist and current State Legislator Chris Herrod, declared campaigns for U. S. Senator. At the Republican convention, Hatch failed to get the 60% vote needed to clinch the Republican nomination and it was Hatchs first primary competition since his election in 1976. The Democratic convention chose former state Senator and IBM executive, Scott Howell as the Democratic candidate, Hatch eventually retained his position with 65. 2% of the vote to Howells 30. 2%. In 2000, Hatch made a bid for the Republican presidential nomination. During the first Republican debate, Hatch made web usability a campaign issue and he claimed his website was more user-friendly than Bushs

15.
Patrick Leahy
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Patrick Joseph Pat Leahy /ˈleɪˌhiː/ is an American politician and the senior United States Senator from Vermont. He has been in office since 1975, a member of the Democratic Party, Leahy served as the President pro tempore of the United States Senate from December 17,2012, to January 6,2015. As President pro tempore, he was third in the line of succession. He is the most senior senator and took office at a younger age than any other current senator, Leahy received the title of President pro tempore emeritus upon the commencement of the 114th Congress. He is the last remaining member of the Senate to have served during the presidency of Gerald Ford, Leahy is currently the longest-serving Democratic Senator as well as the longest-serving U. S. Senator in the history of Vermont, and the current dean of his states congressional delegation, having been there since 1975, he is also the longest serving incumbent Senator following the death of Hawaiis Daniel Inouye, who had served from 1962 until his death in 2012. He is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Senate Judiciary Committee worked extensively on prison reform with the introduction on a number of bills aimed at reforming the overcrowded prisons, the bills include, the Justice Safety Valve Act of 2013, The Smarter Sentencing Act of 2013, and the Public Safety Enhancement Act. Leahy was born in Montpelier, Vermont, the son of Alba and Howard Francis Leahy and his maternal grandparents were Italian, and his father was of Irish ancestry, some of his ancestors came to Vermont during the 19th century to work at quarries. He graduated from Saint Michaels College in 1961 with a bachelor of degree in political science. He was an associate at the firm headed by Philip H. Hoff, in May 1966 Hoff appointed him to fill a vacancy as States Attorney of Chittenden County. Leahy was elected to a term in 1966 and re-elected in 1970. Leahy married Marcelle Pomerleau in 1962, she is bilingual with French Canadian heritage from Quebec immigrants to Vermont and they reside in a farmhouse in Middlesex, Vermont, that they moved to from Burlington, and have three children. In 2012 the Leahys celebrated their anniversary, with Leahy saying ‘‘We hate it when we’re apart from one another. ’’ Leahy is legally blind in his left eye. He won a race against Vermonts lone congressman, Richard Mallary. At 34 years old, he was the youngest Senator in Vermont history, as of 2015, Leahy and Minnesota Congressman Rick Nolan are the only two remaining Watergate Babies in Congress, though Nolans service ended in 1981 and started again in 2013. Leahy was nearly defeated in 1980 by Republican Stewart Ledbetter, winning by only 2,700 votes amid Ronald Reagans landslide victory. In 1986, he faced what was on paper an even stronger challenger in former governor Richard Snelling, in 1992, Vermont Secretary of State Jim Douglas held him to 54 percent of the vote

16.
Party leaders of the United States Senate
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The Senate Majority and Minority Leaders are two United States Senators and members of the party leadership of the United States Senate. They are elected to their positions in the Senate by their party caucuses, the Senate Democratic Caucus. By rule, the Presiding Officer gives the Majority Leader priority in obtaining recognition to speak on the floor of the Senate, the Assistant Majority and Minority Leaders of the United States Senate are the second-ranking members of each partys leadership. The main function of the Majority and Minority Whips is to gather votes on major issues, because they are the second ranking member of the Senate, if there is no floor leader present, the whip may become acting floor leader. Before 1969, the titles were Majority Whip and Minority Whip. The Senate is currently composed of 52 Republicans,46 Democrats, the current leaders are Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. The current Assistant Majority Leader is Republican John Cornyn of Texas, the current Assistant Minority Leader/Whip is Democrat Dick Durbin of Illinois. The Democrats began the practice of electing floor leaders in 1920 while they were in the minority, John W. Kern was a Democratic Senator from Indiana. While the title was not official, he is considered to be the first Senate party leader from 1913 through 1917, the Constitution designates the Vice President of the United States as President of the United States Senate. The Constitution also calls for a President pro tempore to serve as the leader of the body when the President of the Senate is absent, for these reasons, it is the Majority Leader who, in practice, manages the Senate. This is in contrast to the House of Representatives where the elected Speaker of the House has a deal of discretionary power. The Democratic Party first selected a leader in 1920, the Republican Party first formally designated a leader in 1925. gov Republican Majority Democratic Minority

17.
Mitch McConnell
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Addison Mitchell Mitch McConnell Jr. is an American politician and the senior United States Senator from Kentucky. A member of the Republican Party, he has been the Majority Leader of the Senate since January 3,2015 and he is the 15th Republican and the second Kentuckian to lead his party in the Senate. During the administration of President Barack Obama, McConnell was known to the left as being an obstructionist, some on the right praised him for tenacity and courage, while others criticized him for being part of the political establishment and not keeping his promises to conservatives. From early 2016, McConnell refused to schedule Senate hearings for Obamas nominee to the Supreme Court, Merrick Garland, to replace Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February 2016. Garlands nomination remained before the Senate for 294 days, from March 16,2016 until it expired on January 3,2017, McConnell has repeatedly been found to have the lowest home state approval rating of any sitting senator. McConnell was born on February 20,1942, in a hospital in Sheffield, Alabama, which is now called the Helen Keller Hospital, McConnell is the son of Addison Mitchell McConnell, and his wife, Julia. As a youth, he overcame polio and his family moved to Georgia when he was eight. When he was a teenager, his family arrived in Louisville where he attended duPont Manual High School and he graduated with honors from the University of Louisville with a B. A. in political science in 1964. McConnell was president of the Student Council of the College of Arts and Sciences and he has maintained strong ties to his alma mater and remains a rabid fan of its sports teams. Three years later, McConnell graduated from the University of Kentucky College of Law, McConnell is of Scots-Irish and English descent. McConnell enlisted in the U. S. Army Reserve at Louisville and he received an Honorable Discharge for medical reasons after five weeks at Fort Knox. McConnell began interning for Senator John Sherman Cooper in 1964, later, McConnell was an assistant to Senator Marlow Cook and was a Deputy Assistant Attorney General under President Gerald R. Ford, where he worked alongside future Justice Antonin Scalia. In 1977, McConnell was elected the Jefferson County Judge/Executive, the top political office in Jefferson County. 1984 In 1984, McConnell ran for the U. S. Senate against two-term Democratic incumbent Walter Dee Huddleston. The election race wasnt decided until the last returns came in, McConnell was the only Republican Senate challenger to win that year, despite Ronald Reagans landslide victory in the presidential election. His campaign bumper stickers and television ads asked voters to Switch to Mitch,1990 In 1990, McConnell faced a tough re-election contest against former Louisville Mayor Harvey I. 1996 In 1996, he defeated Steve Beshear by 12. 6%,2002 In 2002, he was re-elected against Lois Combs Weinberg by 29. 4%, the largest majority by a statewide Republican candidate in Kentucky history. 2008 In 2008, McConnell faced his closest contest since 1990 and he defeated Bruce Lunsford by 6%

18.
Chuck Schumer
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Charles Ellis Chuck Schumer is an American politician, the senior United States senator from New York and a member of the Democratic Party. First elected in 1998, he defeated three-term Republican incumbent Al DAmato by a margin of 55%–44%, Schumer was re-elected in 2004 by a margin of 71%–24%, in 2010 by a margin of 66%–33% and in 2016 by a margin of 70%-27%. A native of Brooklyn and graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, he was a member of the New York State Assembly. Schumer was chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee from 2005 to 2009 and he was the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate, behind Senate minority leader Harry Reid and Senate minority whip Dick Durbin, elected vice chairman of the Democratic Caucus in the Senate in 2006. In November 2010, he was chosen to hold the additional role of chairman of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee starting at the opening of the 112th Congress. On November 8,2016, Schumer was reelected to his term in the United States Senate. Subsequently, on November 16,2016, he was unanimously elected Senate minority leader to succeed the retiring Reid, Schumer was born in Brooklyn, the son of Selma and Abraham Schumer. His father ran a business, and his mother was a homemaker. His family is Jewish, and he is a cousin, once removed, of comedian. His ancestors originated from the town of Chortkiv, Galicia, in what is now western Ukraine and he attended public schools in Brooklyn, scoring a perfect 1600 on the SAT, and graduated as class valedictorian from James Madison High School, in 1967. Schumer competed for Madison High on the Its Academic television quiz show and he attended Harvard College, where he became interested in politics and campaigned for Eugene McCarthy, in 1968. After completing his degree, he continued to Harvard Law School, earning his Juris Doctor with honors. Schumer passed the New York state bar, in early 1975, however, he never practiced law, choosing instead a career in politics. In 1974, Schumer ran for and was elected to the New York State Assembly, Schumer served three terms, from 1975 to 1981, sitting in the 181st, 182nd and 183rd New York State Legislatures. He has never lost an election, in 1980, 16th District Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman won the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat of Republican Jacob Javits. Schumer ran for Holtzmans vacated House seat and won and he was re-elected eight times from the Brooklyn and Queens-based district, which changed numbers twice in his tenure. In 1982, as a result of redistricting, Schumer faced a potential matchup with veteran Brooklyn congressman Steve Solarz, in preparation, Schumer set about making friends on Wall Street, tapping the citys top law firms and securities houses for campaign donations. I told them I looked like I had a very difficult reapportionment fight, if I were to stand a chance of being re-elected, I needed some help, he would later tell the Associated Press

19.
President of the United States
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The President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the executive branch of the government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces. The president is considered to be one of the worlds most powerful political figures, the role includes being the commander-in-chief of the worlds most expensive military with the second largest nuclear arsenal and leading the nation with the largest economy by nominal GDP. The office of President holds significant hard and soft power both in the United States and abroad, Constitution vests the executive power of the United States in the president. The president is empowered to grant federal pardons and reprieves. The president is responsible for dictating the legislative agenda of the party to which the president is a member. The president also directs the foreign and domestic policy of the United States, since the office of President was established in 1789, its power has grown substantially, as has the power of the federal government as a whole. However, nine vice presidents have assumed the presidency without having elected to the office. The Twenty-second Amendment prohibits anyone from being elected president for a third term, in all,44 individuals have served 45 presidencies spanning 57 full four-year terms. On January 20,2017, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th, in 1776, the Thirteen Colonies, acting through the Second Continental Congress, declared political independence from Great Britain during the American Revolution. The new states, though independent of each other as nation states, desiring to avoid anything that remotely resembled a monarchy, Congress negotiated the Articles of Confederation to establish a weak alliance between the states. Out from under any monarchy, the states assigned some formerly royal prerogatives to Congress, only after all the states agreed to a resolution settling competing western land claims did the Articles take effect on March 1,1781, when Maryland became the final state to ratify them. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris secured independence for each of the former colonies, with peace at hand, the states each turned toward their own internal affairs. Prospects for the convention appeared bleak until James Madison and Edmund Randolph succeeded in securing George Washingtons attendance to Philadelphia as a delegate for Virginia. It was through the negotiations at Philadelphia that the presidency framed in the U. S. The first power the Constitution confers upon the president is the veto, the Presentment Clause requires any bill passed by Congress to be presented to the president before it can become law. Once the legislation has been presented, the president has three options, Sign the legislation, the bill becomes law. Veto the legislation and return it to Congress, expressing any objections, in this instance, the president neither signs nor vetoes the legislation

20.
Donald Trump
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Donald John Trump is the 45th and current President of the United States. Prior to entering politics he was a businessman and television personality, Trump was born and raised in Queens, New York City, and earned an economics degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He then took charge of The Trump Organization, the estate and construction firm founded by his paternal grandmother, which he ran for four. During his real career, Trump has built, renovated, and managed numerous office towers, hotels, casinos. Besides real estate, he started several ventures and has lent the use of his name for the branding of various products. He owned the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants from 1996 to 2015, and he hosted The Apprentice, as of 2017, Forbes listed him as the 544th wealthiest person in the world with a net worth of $3.5 billion. Trump first publicly expressed interest in running for office in 1987. He won two Reform Party presidential primaries in 2000, but withdrew his candidacy early on, in June 2015, he launched his campaign for the 2016 presidential election and quickly emerged as the front-runner among 17 candidates in the Republican primaries. His final opponents suspended their campaigns in May 2016, and in July he was nominated at the Republican National Convention along with Indiana governor Mike Pence as his running mate. His campaign received unprecedented media coverage and international attention, many of the statements he made at rallies, in interviews, or on social media were controversial or false. Trump won the election on November 8,2016, in a surprise victory against Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. His political positions have been described by scholars and commentators as populist, protectionist, Trump was born on June 14,1946 at the Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, Queens, New York City. He was the fourth of five born to Frederick Christ Fred Trump. His siblings are Maryanne, Fred Jr. Elizabeth, and Robert, Trumps ancestors originated from the village of Kallstadt, Palatinate, Germany on his fathers side, and from the Outer Hebrides isles of Scotland on his mothers side. All his grandparents, and his mother, were born in Europe and his mothers grandfather was also christened Donald. On a visit to his village, he met Elisabeth Christ. He died from the flu pandemic of 1918 and Elizabeth incorporated the family real estate business, Elizabeth Trump and Son, which would later become The Trump Organization. Trumps father Fred was born in the Bronx, and worked with his mother since he was 15 as a real estate developer, primarily in the New York boroughs of Queens and he eventually built and sold thousands of houses, barracks and apartments

21.
Cabinet of the United States
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The Cabinet of the United States is composed of the most senior appointed officers of the executive branch of the government serving under the President. Aside from the Attorney General, the heads of the executive departments all receive the title of Secretary, all members of the Cabinet serve at the pleasure of the President, who can dismiss them at will for no cause. There is no definition of the term Cabinet in the United States Constitution. The name comes from a 17th-century usage for a room where advisors would meet. The term principal officers of the departments is also mentioned in the Twenty-fifth Amendment. The executive departments are listed in 5 U. S. C, under the 1967 Federal Anti-Nepotism statute, federal officials are prohibited from appointing their immediate family members to certain governmental positions, including those in the Cabinet. Under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, an incoming administration may appoint acting heads of department from employees of the relevant department and these may be existing high-level career employees, from political appointees of the outgoing administration, or sometimes lower-level appointees of the incoming administration. The heads of the departments and all other federal agency heads are nominated by the President. If approved, they receive their commission scroll, are sworn in, an elected Vice President does not require Senate confirmation, nor does the White House Chief of Staff, which is an appointed staff position of the Executive Office of the President. 21 positions, including the heads of the departments and others. §5312, and those 46 positions on Level II pay are listed in 5 U. S. C, as of 2015, Level I annual pay, was set at $203,700. The annual salary of the Vice President is $235,300, the salary level was set by the Government Salary Reform Act of 1989, which also provides an automatic cost of living adjustment for federal employees. For a full list of people nominated for Cabinet positions, see Formation of Donald Trumps Cabinet, the Cabinet includes the Vice President and the heads of 15 executive departments, listed here according to their order of succession to the Presidency. The following officials hold positions that are considered to be Cabinet-level positions, Department of the Navy, headed by the Secretary of the Navy, became a military department within the Department of Defense. Post Office Department, headed by the Postmaster General, reorganized as the United States Postal Service, National Military Establishment, headed by the Secretary of Defense, created by the National Security Act of 1947 and recreated as the Department of Defense in 1949. Department of the Army, headed by the Secretary of the Army, Department of the Air Force, headed by the Secretary of the Air Force, became a military department within the Department of Defense. Secretary of Foreign Affairs, created in July 1781 and renamed Secretary of State in September 1789, Secretary of War, created in 1789 and was renamed as Secretary of the Army by the National Security Act of 1947. The 1949 Amendments to the National Security Act of 1947 made the Secretary of the Army a subordinate to the Secretary of Defense

22.
Supreme Court of the United States
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The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest federal court of the United States. In the legal system of the United States, the Supreme Court is the interpreter of federal constitutional law. The Court normally consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight justices who are nominated by the President. Once appointed, justices have life tenure unless they resign, retire, in modern discourse, the justices are often categorized as having conservative, moderate, or liberal philosophies of law and of judicial interpretation. Each justice has one vote, and while many cases are decided unanimously, the Court meets in the United States Supreme Court Building in Washington, D. C. The Supreme Court is sometimes referred to as SCOTUS, in analogy to other acronyms such as POTUS. The ratification of the United States Constitution established the Supreme Court in 1789 and its powers are detailed in Article Three of the Constitution. The Supreme Court is the court specifically established by the Constitution. The Court first convened on February 2,1790, by which five of its six initial positions had been filled. According to historian Fergus Bordewich, in its first session, he Supreme Court convened for the first time at the Royal Exchange Building on Broad Street and they had no cases to consider. After a week of inactivity, they adjourned until September, the sixth member was not confirmed until May 12,1790. Because the full Court had only six members, every decision that it made by a majority was made by two-thirds. However, Congress has always allowed less than the Courts full membership to make decisions, under Chief Justices Jay, Rutledge, and Ellsworth, the Court heard few cases, its first decision was West v. Barnes, a case involving a procedural issue. The Courts power and prestige grew substantially during the Marshall Court, the Marshall Court also ended the practice of each justice issuing his opinion seriatim, a remnant of British tradition, and instead issuing a single majority opinion. Also during Marshalls tenure, although beyond the Courts control, the impeachment, the Taney Court made several important rulings, such as Sheldon v. Nevertheless, it is primarily remembered for its ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford, which helped precipitate the Civil War. In the Reconstruction era, the Chase, Waite, and Fuller Courts interpreted the new Civil War amendments to the Constitution, during World War II, the Court continued to favor government power, upholding the internment of Japanese citizens and the mandatory pledge of allegiance. Nevertheless, Gobitis was soon repudiated, and the Steel Seizure Case restricted the pro-government trend, the Warren Court dramatically expanded the force of Constitutional civil liberties. It held that segregation in public schools violates equal protection and that traditional legislative district boundaries violated the right to vote

23.
Chief Justice of the United States
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The Chief Justice of the United States is the head of the United States federal court system and the chief judge of the Supreme Court of the United States. The Chief Justice is one of nine Supreme Court justices, the eight are the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. From 1789 until 1866, the office was known as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice also serves as a spokesperson for the judicial branch. The Chief Justice leads the business of the Supreme Court and presides over oral arguments, when the court renders an opinion, the Chief Justice—when in the majority—decides who writes the courts opinion. The Chief Justice also has significant agenda-setting power over the courts meetings, in the case of an impeachment of a President of the United States, which has occurred twice, the Chief Justice presides over the trial in the Senate. In modern tradition, the Chief Justice also has the duty of administering the oath of office of the President of the United States. The first Chief Justice was John Jay, the 17th and current Chief Justice is John G. Roberts, Jr. The office was known as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and is still informally referred to using that title. However,28 U. S. C. §1 specifies that the title is Chief Justice of the United States, the title was changed from Chief Justice of the Supreme Court by Congress in 1866 at the suggestion of the sixth Chief Justice, Salmon P. Chase. Chase wished to emphasize the Supreme Courts role as a branch of government. The first Chief Justice commissioned using the new title was Melville Fuller in 1888, use of the previous title when referring to Chief Justices John Jay through Roger B. Taney is technically correct, as that was the title during their time on the court. The other eight members of the court are officially Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, the Chief Justice is the only member of the court to whom the Constitution refers as a Justice, and only in Article I. Article III of the Constitution refers to all members of the Supreme Court simply as Judges, the Chief Justice is nominated by the President of the United States and confirmed to sit on the Court by the United States Senate. The salary of the Chief Justice is set by Congress, the Constitution prohibits Congress from lowering the salary of any judge, including the Chief Justice, while that judge holds office. As of 2015, the salary is $258,100 per year, which is higher than that of the Associate Justices. Three serving Associate Justices have received promotions to Chief Justice, Edward Douglass White in 1910, Harlan Fiske Stone in 1941, Associate Justice Abe Fortas was nominated to the position of Chief Justice of the United States, but his nomination was filibustered by Senate Republicans in 1968. Despite the failed nomination, Fortas remained an Associate Justice until his resignation the following year, there have been 21 individuals nominated for Chief Justice, of whom 17 have been confirmed by the Senate, although a different 17 have served

24.
John Roberts
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John Glover Roberts Jr. is the 17th and current Chief Justice of the United States. He took his seat on September 29,2005, having been nominated by President George W. Bush after the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist and he has been described as having a conservative judicial philosophy in his jurisprudence. Roberts grew up in northwest Indiana and was educated in a private school and he then attended Harvard College and Harvard Law School, where he was a managing editor of the Harvard Law Review. During this time, he argued 39 cases before the Supreme Court, notably, he represented 19 states in United States v. Microsoft. In 2003, Roberts was appointed as a judge of the D. C. Circuit by President George W. Bush, during his two-year tenure on the D. C. Circuit, Roberts authored 49 opinions, eliciting two dissents from other judges, and authoring three dissents of his own, in 2005, Roberts was nominated to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, initially to succeed retiring Justice Sandra Day OConnor. When Chief Justice Rehnquist died before Robertss confirmation hearings began, Bush instead nominated Roberts to fill the Chief Justice position, Roberts has authored the majority opinion in many landmark cases, including Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, Shelby County v. Holder, and National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, John Glover Roberts was born in Buffalo, New York, the son of Rosemary and John Glover Jack Roberts Sr. His father was a plant manager with Bethlehem Steel and he has Irish, Welsh, and Czech ancestry. When Roberts was in grade, his family moved to Long Beach. He grew up with three sisters, Kathy, Peggy, and Barbara, Roberts attended Notre Dame Elementary School, a Roman Catholic grade school in Long Beach. In 1973, he graduated from La Lumiere School, a Roman Catholic boarding school in La Porte, Indiana and he studied five years of Latin, some French, and was known generally for his devotion to his studies. He was captain of the team, and was a regional champion in wrestling. He participated in choir and drama, co-edited the school newspaper, and served on the athletic council and he attended Harvard College, graduating in 1976 with an A. B. summa cum laude in history in three years. He then attended Harvard Law School where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He graduated from law school with a J. D. magna cum laude in 1979, after graduating from law school, Roberts served as a law clerk for Judge Henry Friendly on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals for one year. Roberts frequently cites Judge Friendly in his opinions, from 1980 to 1981, he clerked for then-Associate Justice William Rehnquist on the United States Supreme Court. From 1981 to 1982, he served in the Reagan administration as a Special Assistant to U. S. Attorney General William French Smith, from 1982 to 1986, Roberts served as Associate Counsel to the President under White House Counsel Fred Fielding

25.
Anthony Kennedy
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Kennedy became the most senior Associate Justice on the court following the death of Antonin Scalia in February 2016. Since the retirement of Sandra Day OConnor in 2006, he has been the swing vote on many of the Courts 5–4 decisions. He has authored the majority ruling in many of these cases, including Lawrence v. Texas, Boumediene v. Bush, Citizens United v. FEC, Kennedy was born and raised in an Irish Catholic family in Sacramento, California. He was the son of Anthony J. Kennedy, an attorney with a reputation for influence in the California legislature, and Gladys, as a boy, Kennedy came into contact with prominent politicians of the day, such as California Governor and later U. S. He served as a page in the California State Senate as a young man, Kennedy attended Stanford University, graduating with a B. A. after spending his senior year at the London School of Economics. He earned an LL. B cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1961, Kennedy has been married to Mary Davis since 1963, and they have three children. Kennedy was in practice in San Francisco from 1961 to 1963. In 1963, following his fathers death, he took over his fathers Sacramento practice, from 1965 to 1988, he was a Professor of Constitutional Law at McGeorge School of Law, at the University of the Pacific. He continues to teach law students at seminars during McGeorges European summer sessions in Salzburg and he remains Pacific McGeorges longest-serving active faculty member. During Kennedys time as a California law professor and attorney, he helped California Governor Ronald Reagan draft a state tax proposal. Kennedy has served in numerous positions during his career, including the California Army National Guard in 1961, Kennedy was unanimously confirmed by the U. S. Senate on March 20 and received his commission on March 24,1975. On November 11,1987, Kennedy was nominated to the Supreme Court seat vacated by Lewis F. Powell, Kennedy was then subjected to an unprecedentedly thorough investigation of his background, which he easily passed. In a lower court dissent that Kennedy had written before joining the Supreme Court, considering such conduct offensive and destructive of the family, Kennedy had written, indifference to personal liberty is but the precursor of the states hostility to it. It does not follow that each of those rights is one that we as judges can enforce under the written Constitution. The Due Process Clause is not a guarantee of every right that should inhere in an ideal system, many argue that a just society grants a right to engage in homosexual conduct. We can extend that slightly to say that Georgias right to be wrong in matters not specifically controlled by the Constitution is a component of its own political processes. Its citizens have the liberty to direct the governmental process to make decisions that might be wrong in the ideal sense. Kennedy said about Griswold v. Connecticut, I really think I would like to draw the line and he also discussed a zone of liberty, a zone of protection, a line thats drawn where the individual can tell the Government, Beyond this line you may not go

26.
Clarence Thomas
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Clarence Thomas is an American judge, lawyer, and government official who currently serves as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Thomas succeeded Thurgood Marshall and is the second African American to serve on the court, Thomas grew up in Savannah, Georgia, and was educated at the College of the Holy Cross and at Yale Law School. In 1974, he was appointed an Assistant Attorney General in Missouri, in 1979, he became a legislative assistant to Senator John Danforth and in 1981 was appointed Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U. S. Department of Education. In 1982, President Ronald Reagan appointed Thomas Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, in 1990, President George H. W. Bush nominated Thomas for a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He served in that role for 16 months and on July 1,1991, was nominated by Bush to fill Marshalls seat on the United States Supreme Court, the U. S. Senate ultimately confirmed Thomas by a vote of 52–48. Since joining the court, Thomas has taken a textualist approach, seeking to uphold the original meaning of the United States Constitution and he is generally viewed as the most conservative member of the court. Clarence Thomas was born in 1948 in Pin Point, Georgia and he was the second of three children born to M. C. Thomas, a worker, and Leola Williams, a domestic worker. They were descendants of American slaves, and the family spoke Gullah as a first language, Thomass earliest-known ancestors were slaves named Sandy and Peggy who were born around the end of the 18th century and owned by wealthy Liberty County, Georgia planter Josiah Wilson. M. C. left his family when Thomas was two years old, Thomass mother worked hard but was sometimes paid only pennies per day. She had difficulty putting food on the table and was forced to rely on charity, after a house fire left them homeless, Thomas and his younger brother Myers were taken to live with his maternal grandparents in Savannah, Georgia. Thomas was seven when the family moved in with his grandfather, Myers Anderson. Living with his grandparents, Thomas enjoyed amenities such as indoor plumbing and his grandfather Myers Anderson had little formal education, but had built a thriving fuel oil business that also sold ice. Thomas calls his grandfather the greatest man I have ever known, when Thomas was 10, Anderson started taking the family to help at a farm every day from sunrise to sunset. His grandfather believed in hard work and self-reliance, he would counsel Thomas to never let the sun catch you in bed, Thomas grandfather also impressed upon his grandsons the importance of getting a good education. Thomas was the black person at his high school in Savannah. He considered entering the priesthood at the age of 16, and he also briefly attended Conception Seminary College, a Roman Catholic seminary in Missouri. No one in Thomass family had attended college, Thomas has said that during his first year in seminary, he was one of only three or four blacks attending the school

27.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
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Ruth Bader Ginsburg is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Ginsburg was appointed by President Bill Clinton and took the oath of office on August 10,1993 and she is the second female justice and one of four female justices appointed on the Supreme Court. She is generally viewed as belonging to the wing of the Court. Ginsburg was one of the few women in her law school class, following law school, Ginsburg turned to academia. She was a professor at Rutgers School of Law–Newark and Columbia Law School, Ginsburg spent a considerable portion of her legal career as an advocate for the advancement of gender equality and womens rights, winning multiple victories arguing before the Supreme Court. She advocated as a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union and was a member of its board of directors. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the U. S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Born in Brooklyn, New York City, Joan Ruth Bader is the daughter of Nathan and Celia Bader, Russian Jewish immigrants. The Baders older daughter, Marylin, died of meningitis at age 6 when Ruth was 14 months old, the family called Joan Ruth Kiki, a nickname Marylin had given her for being a kicky baby. When Kiki started school, Celia discovered that her daughters class had several other girls named Joan, although not devout, the Bader family belonged to East Midwood Jewish Center, a Conservative temple, where Ruth learned tenets of the Jewish faith and gained familiarity with the Hebrew language. At age thirteen, Ruth acted as the rabbi at a Jewish summer program at Camp Che-Na-Wah in Minerva. Her mother took a role in her education, taking her to the library often. Celia had been a student in her youth, graduating from high school at age 15. Celia wanted to see her daughter get more of an education, Ruth attended James Madison High School, whose law program later dedicated a courtroom in her honor. Celia struggled with cancer throughout Ruths high school years, and died the day before Ruths high school graduation, Bader attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where she was a member of Alpha Epsilon Phi. While at Cornell she met Martin D. Ginsburg at age 17 and she graduated from Cornell with a Bachelor of Arts degree in government on June 23,1954. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the female student in her graduating class. At age 21, she worked for the Social Security Administration office in Oklahoma and she gave birth to a daughter in 1955

28.
Stephen Breyer
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Stephen Gerald Breyer is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1994, Breyer is generally associated with the liberal side of the Court. Following a clerkship with Supreme Court Associate Justice Arthur Goldberg in 1964, Breyer became well known as a law professor and lecturer at Harvard Law School, there he specialized in administrative law, writing a number of influential textbooks that remain in use today. Breyer was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Anne A. and Irving Gerald Breyer, Irving Breyer was legal counsel for the San Francisco Board of Education. Both Breyer and his brother, Charles, who is a federal district judge, are Eagle Scouts of San Franciscos Troop 14. Breyers paternal great-grandfather emigrated from Romania to the United States, settling in Cleveland, in 1955, Breyer graduated from Lowell High School. He is also fluent in French, in 1967, he married the Hon. Joanna Freda Hare, a psychologist and member of the British aristocracy, as the youngest daughter of John Hare, 1st Viscount Blakenham. The Breyers have three children, Chloe, an Episcopal priest and author of The Close, Nell. Breyer served as a law clerk to Associate Justice Arthur Goldberg during the 1964 term and he was a special assistant to the United States Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust from 1965 to 1967 and an assistant special prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force in 1973. Breyer was a counsel to the U. S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary from 1974 to 1975. He worked closely with the chairman of the committee, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Breyer was a lecturer, assistant professor, and law professor at Harvard Law School starting in 1967. He taught there until 1994, also serving as a professor at Harvards Kennedy School of Government from 1977 to 1980, at Harvard, Breyer was known as a leading expert on administrative law. While there, he wrote two influential books on deregulation, Breaking the Vicious Circle, Toward Effective Risk Regulation and Regulation. In 1970, Breyer wrote The Uneasy Case for Copyright, one of the most widely cited skeptical examinations of copyright, Breyer was a visiting professor at the College of Law in Sydney, Australia, the University of Rome, and the Tulane University Law School. From 1980 to 1994, Breyer was a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, he was the courts Chief Judge from 1990 to 1994. In the last days of President Jimmy Carters administration, on November 13,1980, Carter nominated Breyer to the First Circuit, and the U. S. Senate confirmed him on December 9,1980, by an 80–10 vote. He served as a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States between 1990 and 1994 and the United States Sentencing Commission between 1985 and 1989, in 1993, President Bill Clinton considered him for the seat vacated by Byron White that ultimately went to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Breyers appointment came shortly thereafter, however, following the retirement of Harry Blackmun in 1994, Breyer was confirmed by the U. S. Senate in an 87 to 9 vote and took his seat August 3,1994

29.
Samuel Alito
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Samuel Anthony Alito, Jr. is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President George W. Bush and has served on the court since January 31,2006 and he is the 110th justice, the second Italian-American, and the eleventh Roman Catholic to serve on the court. Alito is considered one of the most conservative justices on the Court and he has described himself as a practical originalist. Alitos majority opinions in cases include McDonald v. Chicago. Alito was born in Trenton, New Jersey, the son of Samuel A. Alito, Sr. an Italian immigrant, and the former Rose Fradusco, an Italian-American. Alitos father, now deceased, was a school teacher and then became the first Director of the New Jersey Office of Legislative Services. Alitos mother is a retired schoolteacher, Alito grew up in Hamilton Township, New Jersey, a suburb of Trenton. It also called for the decriminalization of sodomy, and urged for an end to discrimination against gays in hiring by employers and he also led the American Whig-Cliosophic Societys Debate Panel during his time at Princeton. While a sophomore at Princeton, Alito received a low number,32. In 1970, he became a member of the schools Army ROTC program, attending a basic training camp that year at Fort Knox. Alito was a member of the Concerned Alumni of Princeton, which was formed in October 1972 at least in part to oppose Princetons decisions regarding affirmative action, Alito has cited the banning and subsequent treatment of ROTC by the university as his reason for belonging to CAP. During his senior year at Princeton, Alito moved out of New Jersey for the first time to study in Italy, where he wrote his thesis on the Italian legal system. Graduating in 1972, Alito left a sign of his lofty aspirations in his yearbook and he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the U. S. Army Signal Corps after his graduation from Princeton and assigned to the United States Army Reserve. Following his graduation from Yale Law School, he served on duty from September to December 1975. The remainder of his time in the Army was served in the inactive Reserves and he was a captain when he received an honorable discharge in 1980. After graduating from Yale Law School in 1975, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal, garth in Newark, New Jersey in 1976 and 1977. He interviewed with Supreme Court Justice Byron White for a clerkship but was not hired, between 1977 and 1981, Alito was Assistant United States Attorney, District of New Jersey. While serving as an Assistant U. S. Attorney for New Jersey, he prosecuted many cases that involved drug trafficking, from 1981 to 1985, Alito was Assistant to Solicitor General Rex E. Lee

30.
Sonia Sotomayor
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Sonia Maria Sotomayor is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving since August 2009. She has the distinction of being its first justice of Hispanic heritage, the first Latina, its third female justice, Sotomayor, along with John Roberts and Elena Kagan, is one of the youngest justices on the Supreme Court. Sotomayor was born in The Bronx, New York City, to Puerto Rican-born parents and her father died when she was nine, and she was subsequently raised by her mother. Sotomayor graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1976 and received her J. D. from Yale Law School in 1979 and she was an advocate for the hiring of Latino faculty at both schools. She worked as an assistant district attorney in New York for four and she played an active role on the boards of directors for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, the State of New York Mortgage Agency, and the New York City Campaign Finance Board. Sotomayor was nominated to the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by President George H. W. Bush in 1991, confirmation followed in 1992. In 1997, she was nominated by President Bill Clinton to the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and her nomination was slowed by the Republican majority in the United States Senate, but she was eventually confirmed in 1998. On the Second Circuit, Sotomayor heard appeals in more than 3,000 cases, Sotomayor has taught at the New York University School of Law and Columbia Law School. In May 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Sotomayor to the Supreme Court following the retirement of Justice David Souter and her nomination was confirmed by the Senate in August 2009 by a vote of 68–31. Sotomayor has supported, while on the court, the liberal bloc of justices when they divide along the commonly perceived ideological lines. Sonia Maria Sotomayor was born in the New York City borough of The Bronx, the two left Puerto Rico separately, met, and married during World War II after Celina served in the Womens Army Corps. Juan Sotomayor had an education, did not speak English. Sonias younger brother, Juan Sotomayor, later became a physician and university professor in the Syracuse, New York, Sotomayor was raised a Catholic and grew up in Puerto Rican communities in the South Bronx and East Bronx, she self-identifies as a Nuyorican. The family lived in a South Bronx tenement before moving in 1957 to the well-maintained, racially and ethnically mixed and her relative proximity to Yankee Stadium led to her becoming a lifelong fan of the New York Yankees. The extended family got together frequently and regularly visited Puerto Rico during summers, Sonia grew up with an alcoholic father and a mother who was emotionally distant, she felt closest to her grandmother, who she later said gave her a source of protection and purpose. Sonia was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age seven, and her father died of heart problems at age 42, when she was nine years old. After this, she became fluent in English and she reflected in 1998, I was going to college and I was going to become an attorney, and I knew that when I was ten. Celina Sotomayor put great stress on the value of education, she bought the Encyclopædia Britannica for her children, for grammar school, Sotomayor attended Blessed Sacrament School in Soundview, where she was valedictorian and had a near-perfect attendance record

31.
Elena Kagan
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Elena Kagan is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Kagan is the Courts fourth female justice, Kagan was born and raised in New York City. After attending Princeton, Oxford, and Harvard Law School, she completed federal Court of Appeals and she began her career as a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, leaving to serve as Associate White House Counsel, and later as policy adviser, under President Clinton. After a nomination to the United States Court of Appeals for the D. C, Circuit, which expired without action, she became a professor at Harvard Law School and was later named its first female dean. In 2009, Kagan became the first female Solicitor General, after confirmation, Kagan was sworn in on August 7,2010, by Chief Justice John G. Roberts. Kagans formal investiture ceremony before a sitting of the United States Supreme Court took place on October 1,2010. Kagan was born in New York City, the middle of three children, on the citys Upper West Side and her father, Robert Kagan, was an attorney, and her mother, Gloria Kagan, taught at Hunter College Elementary School. Kagans two brothers are public school teachers, Kagan and her family lived in a third-floor apartment at West End Avenue and 75th Street and attended Lincoln Square Synagogue. Kagan was independent and strong-willed in her youth and, according to a law partner. She had strong opinions about what a bat mitzvah should be like, but they finally worked it out. She negotiated with the rabbi and came to a conclusion that satisfied everybody, Kagans rabbi, Shlomo Riskin, had never performed a ritual bat mitzvah before. Elena Kagan felt very strongly that there should be ritual bat mitzvah in the synagogue and this was really the first formal bat mitzvah we had, said Riskin. Kagan asked to read from the Torah on a Saturday morning but ultimately read on a Friday night, May 18,1973, today, she identifies with Conservative Judaism. Childhood friend Margaret Raymond recalled that Kagan was a teenage smoker, on Saturday nights, she and Kagan were more apt to sit on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and talk. Kagan also loved literature and re-read Jane Austens Pride and Prejudice every year, in her Hunter College High School yearbook of 1977, Kagan was pictured in a judges robe and holding a gavel. Next to her photo was a quote from former Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, Government is itself an art, after graduating from high school, Kagan attended Princeton University, where she earned an A. B. summa cum laude in history in 1981. Among the subjects she studied was the socialist movement in New York City in the early 20th century and she wrote a senior thesis under historian Sean Wilentz titled To the Final Conflict, Socialism in New York City, 1900–1933. In it she wrote, Through its own internal feuding, then, the story is a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialisms decline, still wish to change America

32.
United States courts of appeals
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The United States courts of appeals are the intermediate appellate courts of the United States federal court system. A court of appeals decides appeals from the courts within its federal judicial circuit. The United States courts of appeals are considered among the most powerful, because of their ability to set legal precedent in regions that cover millions of Americans, the United States courts of appeals have strong policy influence on U. S. law. The Ninth Circuit in particular is influential, covering 20% of the American population. There are currently 179 judges on the U. S. courts of appeals authorized by Congress in 28 U. S. C. §43 pursuant to Article III of the U. S. Constitution. These judges are nominated by the President of the United States and they have lifetime tenure, earning an annual salary of $215,400. The eleven numbered circuits and the D. C. Circuit are geographically defined, the thirteenth court of appeals is the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which has nationwide jurisdiction over certain appeals based on their subject matter. All of the courts of appeals also hear appeals from some administrative decisions and rulemaking. Decisions of the U. S. courts of appeals have been published by the private company West Publishing in the Federal Reporter series since the courts were established, only decisions that the courts designate for publication are included. The unpublished opinions are published separately in Wests Federal Appendix, more recently, court decisions have also been made available electronically on official court websites. However, there are also a few federal court decisions that are classified for security reasons. The number of judges that the U. S. Congress has authorized for each circuit is set forth by law in 28 U. S. C. §44, while the places where those judges must regularly sit to hear appeals are prescribed in 28 U. S. C, the current courts of appeals system was established in the Judiciary Act of 1891, also known as the Evarts Act. Because the courts of appeals possess only appellate jurisdiction, they do not hold trials, instead, appeals courts review decisions of trial courts for errors of law. Accordingly, a court considers only the record from the trial court. These arguments, which are presented in form and can range in length from dozens to hundreds of pages, are known as briefs. Sometimes lawyers are permitted to add to their written briefs with oral arguments before the appeals judges, at such hearings, only the parties lawyers speak to the court. The rules that govern the procedure in the courts of appeals are the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, in a court of appeals, an appeal is almost always heard by a panel of three judges who are randomly selected from the available judges

33.
United States district court
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The United States district courts are the general trial courts of the United States federal court system. Both civil and criminal cases are filed in the court, which is a court of law, equity. There is a United States bankruptcy court associated with each United States district court, each federal judicial district has at least one courthouse, and many districts have more than one. The formal name of a court is the United States District Court for the name of the district—for example. In contrast to the Supreme Court, which was established by Article III of the Constitution, there is no constitutional requirement that district courts exist at all. This view did not prevail, however, and the first Congress created the court system that is still in place today. There is at least one district for each state, the District of Columbia. District courts in three insular areas—the United States Virgin Islands, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands—exercise the same jurisdiction as Article III U. S. district courts, despite their name, these courts are technically not District Courts of the United States. Judges on these Article IV territorial courts do not enjoy the protections of Article Three of the Constitution, there are 89 districts in the 50 states, with a total of 94 districts including territories. The United States Court of International Trade addresses cases involving international trade, the United States Tax Court has jurisdiction over contested pre-assessment determinations of taxes. A judge of a United States district court is titled a United States District Judge. The number of judges in district court is set by Congress in the United States Code. The President appoints the judges for terms of good behavior. With the exception of the courts, federal district judges are Article III judges appointed for life. Otherwise, a judge, even if convicted of a criminal offense by a jury, is entitled to hold office until retirement or death. In the history of the United States, only twelve judges have been impeached by the House, a judge who has reached the age of 65 may retire or elect to go on senior status and keep working. A federal judge is addressed in writing as The Honorable John/Jane Doe or Hon. John/Jane Doe and in speech as Judge or Judge Doe or, when presiding in court, Your Honor. District judges usually concentrate on managing their courts overall caseload, supervising trials, since the 1960s, routine tasks like resolving discovery disputes can, in the district judges discretion, be referred to magistrate judges

34.
Elections in the United States
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The United States is a federal republic, with elected officials at the federal, state and local levels. On a national level, the head of state, the President, is elected indirectly by the people of each state, today, the electors virtually always vote with the popular vote of their state. All members of the legislature, the Congress, are directly elected by the people of each state. There are many elected offices at state level, each state having at least an elective Governor, there are also elected offices at the local level, in counties, cities, towns, townships, boroughs, and villages. According to a study by political scientist Jennifer Lawless, there were 519,682 elected officials in the United States as of 2012, the United States Constitution defines how the elections of federal officials are conducted in each state, in Article One and Article Two and various amendments. The restriction and extension of voting rights to different groups has been a contested process throughout the United States history, the federal government has also been involved in attempts to increase voter turnout, by measures such as the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. The financing of elections has always been controversial, because private sources make up substantial amounts of campaign contributions, voluntary public funding for candidates willing to accept spending limits was introduced in 1974 for presidential primaries and elections. S. The most common used in U. S. elections is the first-past-the-post system. Some may use a system, where if no candidate receives a required number of votes then there is a runoff between the two candidates with the most votes. Since 2002, several cities have adopted instant-runoff voting in their elections, Voters rank the candidates in order of preference rather than voting for a single candidate. If a candidate more than half of votes cast, that candidate wins. Otherwise, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, ballots assigned to the eliminated candidate are recounted and assigned to those of the remaining candidates who rank next in order of preference on each ballot. This process continues until one wins by obtaining more than half the votes. The eligibility of an individual for voting is set out in the constitution, the constitution states that suffrage cannot be denied on grounds of race or color, sex or age for citizens eighteen years or older. Beyond these basic qualifications, it is the responsibility of state legislatures to regulate voter eligibility, some states ban convicted criminals, especially felons, from voting for a fixed period of time or indefinitely. The number of American adults who are currently or permanently ineligible to vote due to felony convictions is estimated to be 5.3 million, while the federal government has jurisdiction over federal elections, most election laws are decided at the state level. All U. S. states except North Dakota require that citizens who wish to vote be registered. Traditionally, voters had to register at state offices to vote, other states allow citizens same-day registration on Election Day

35.
United States presidential election
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These electors then in turn cast direct votes, known as electoral votes, for President and Vice President. The candidate who receives a majority of electoral votes for President or Vice President is then elected to that office. The Electoral College and its procedure is established in the U. S, Constitution by Article II, Section 1, Clauses 2 and 4, and the Twelfth Amendment. C. Casts the same number of votes as the least-represented state. Also under Clause 2, the manner for choosing electors is determined by state legislature. Many state legislatures used to select their electors directly, but over all of them switched to using the popular vote to help determine electors. In modern times, faithless and unpledged electors have not affected the outcome of an election. The Electoral College electors then formally cast their votes on the first Monday after December 12 at their respective state capitals. Congress then certify the results in early January, and the term begins on Inauguration Day. These primary elections are held between January and June before the general election in November, while the nominating conventions are held in the summer. Article Two of the United States Constitution originally established the method of presidential elections and this was a result of a compromise between those constitutional framers who wanted the Congress to choose the president, and those who preferred a national popular vote. Each state is allocated a number of electors that is equal to the size of its delegation in both houses of Congress combined. With the ratification of the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution in 1961, however, U. S. territories are not represented in the Electoral College. Constitutionally, the manner for choosing electors is determined within each state by its legislature, during the first presidential election in 1789, only 6 of the 13 original states chose electors by any form of popular vote. Gradually throughout the years, the states began conducting popular elections to choose their slate of electors, resulting in the overall. Under the original system established by Article Two, electors could cast two votes to two different candidates for president, the candidate with the highest number of votes became the president, and the second-place candidate became the vice president. This presented a problem during the election of 1800 when Aaron Burr received the same number of electoral votes as Thomas Jefferson. In the end, Jefferson was chosen as the president because of Alexander Hamiltons influence in the House of Representatives and this added to the deep rivalry between Burr and Hamilton which resulted in their famous 1804 duel

36.
Democratic Party (United States)
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The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The Democrats dominant worldview was once socially conservative and fiscally classical liberalism, while, especially in the rural South, since Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal coalition in the 1930s, the Democratic Party has also promoted a social-liberal platform, supporting social justice. Today, the House Democratic caucus is composed mostly of progressives and centrists, the partys philosophy of modern liberalism advocates social and economic equality, along with the welfare state. It seeks to provide government intervention and regulation in the economy, the party has united with smaller left-wing regional parties throughout the country, such as the Farmer–Labor Party in Minnesota and the Nonpartisan League in North Dakota. Well into the 20th century, the party had conservative pro-business, the New Deal Coalition of 1932–1964 attracted strong support from voters of recent European extraction—many of whom were Catholics based in the cities. After Franklin D. Roosevelts New Deal of the 1930s, the pro-business wing withered outside the South, after the racial turmoil of the 1960s, most southern whites and many northern Catholics moved into the Republican Party at the presidential level. The once-powerful labor union element became smaller and less supportive after the 1970s, white Evangelicals and Southerners became heavily Republican at the state and local level in the 1990s. However, African Americans became a major Democratic element after 1964, after 2000, Hispanic and Latino Americans, Asian Americans, the LGBT community, single women and professional women moved towards the party as well. The Northeast and the West Coast became Democratic strongholds by 1990 after the Republicans stopped appealing to socially liberal voters there, overall, the Democratic Party has retained a membership lead over its major rival the Republican Party. The most recent was the 44th president Barack Obama, who held the office from 2009 to 2017, in the 115th Congress, following the 2016 elections, Democrats are the opposition party, holding a minority of seats in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The party also holds a minority of governorships, and state legislatures, though they do control the mayoralty of cities such as New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Washington, D. C. The Democratic Party traces its origins to the inspiration of the Democratic-Republican Party, founded by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and that party also inspired the Whigs and modern Republicans. Organizationally, the modern Democratic Party truly arose in the 1830s, since the nomination of William Jennings Bryan in 1896, the party has generally positioned itself to the left of the Republican Party on economic issues. They have been liberal on civil rights issues since 1948. On foreign policy both parties changed position several times and that party, the Democratic-Republican Party, came to power in the election of 1800. After the War of 1812 the Federalists virtually disappeared and the national political party left was the Democratic-Republicans. The Democratic-Republican party still had its own factions, however. As Norton explains the transformation in 1828, Jacksonians believed the peoples will had finally prevailed, through a lavishly financed coalition of state parties, political leaders, and newspaper editors, a popular movement had elected the president

37.
Republican Party (United States)
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The Republican Party, commonly referred to as the GOP, is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, the other being its historic rival, the Democratic Party. The party is named after republicanism, the dominant value during the American Revolution and it was founded by anti-slavery activists, modernists, ex-Whigs, and ex-Free Soilers in 1854. The Republicans dominated politics nationally and in the majority of northern States for most of the period between 1860 and 1932, there have been 19 Republican presidents, the most from any one party. The Republican Partys current ideology is American conservatism, which contrasts with the Democrats more progressive platform, further, its platform involves support for free market capitalism, free enterprise, fiscal conservatism, a strong national defense, deregulation, and restrictions on labor unions. In addition to advocating for economic policies, the Republican Party is socially conservative. As of 2017, the GOP is documented as being at its strongest position politically since 1928, in addition to holding the Presidency, the Republicans control the 115th United States Congress, having majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The party also holds a majority of governorships and state legislatures, the main cause was opposition to the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise by which slavery was kept out of Kansas. The Northern Republicans saw the expansion of slavery as a great evil, the first public meeting of the general anti-Nebraska movement where the name Republican was suggested for a new anti-slavery party was held on March 20,1854, in a schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin. The name was chosen to pay homage to Thomas Jeffersons Republican Party. The first official party convention was held on July 6,1854, in Jackson and it oversaw the preserving of the union, the end of slavery, and the provision of equal rights to all men in the American Civil War and Reconstruction, 1861–1877. The Republicans initial base was in the Northeast and the upper Midwest, with the realignment of parties and voters in the Third Party System, the strong run of John C. Fremont in the 1856 United States presidential election demonstrated it dominated most northern states, early Republican ideology was reflected in the 1856 slogan free labor, free land, free men, which had been coined by Salmon P. Chase, a Senator from Ohio. Free labor referred to the Republican opposition to labor and belief in independent artisans. Free land referred to Republican opposition to the system whereby slaveowners could buy up all the good farm land. The Party strove to contain the expansion of slavery, which would cause the collapse of the slave power, Lincoln, representing the fast-growing western states, won the Republican nomination in 1860 and subsequently won the presidency. The party took on the mission of preserving the Union, and destroying slavery during the American Civil War, in the election of 1864, it united with War Democrats to nominate Lincoln on the National Union Party ticket. The partys success created factionalism within the party in the 1870s and those who felt that Reconstruction had been accomplished and was continued mostly to promote the large-scale corruption tolerated by President Ulysses S. Grant ran Horace Greeley for the presidency. The Stalwarts defended Grant and the system, the Half-Breeds led by Chester A. Arthur pushed for reform of the civil service in 1883

38.
Federalism in the United States
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Federalism in the United States is the constitutional relationship between U. S. state governments and the national government of the United States. Since the founding of the country, and particularly with the end of the American Civil War, power shifted away from the states, the progression of federalism includes dual, state-centered, and new federalism. Federalism was a solution for the problems with the Articles of Confederation which gave little practical authority to the federal government. The movement was strengthened by the reaction to Shays Rebellion of 1786–1787. The rebellion was fueled by an economy that was created, in part. Moreover, the government had proven incapable of raising an army to quell the rebellion. This convention almost immediately dropped its original mandate and instead set about constructing a new Constitution of the United States, once the convention concluded and released the Constitution for public consumption, the Federalist movement became focused on getting the Constitution ratified. The Federalist Papers remain one of the most important set of documents in American history and those opposed to the new Constitution became known as the Anti-Federalists. The Anti-Federalist critique soon centered on the absence of a bill of rights, because George Washington lent his prestige to the Constitution and because of the ingenuity and organizational skills of its proponents, the Constitution was ratified by all the states. The outgoing Congress of the Confederation scheduled elections for the new government, in 1789, Congress submitted twelve articles of amendment to the states. Ten of these articles, written by congressional committees, achieved passage on December 15,1791, the Tenth Amendment set the guidelines for federalism in the United States. As soon as the first Federalist movement dissipated, a second one sprang up to take its place and this one was based on the policies of Alexander Hamilton and his allies for a stronger national government, a loose construction of the Constitution, and a mercantile economy. While the Federalist movement of the 1780s and the Federalist Party were distinct entities, the Democratic-Republican Party, the opposition to the Federalist Party, emphasized the fear that a strong national government was a threat to the liberties of the people. They stressed that the debt created by the new government would bankrupt the country. These themes resonated with the Anti-Federalists, the opposition to the Federalist movement of the 1780s, as Norman Risjord has documented for Virginia, of the supporters of the Constitution in 1788, 69% joined the Federalist party, while nearly all of the opponents joined the Republicans. 71% of Thomas Jeffersons supporters in Virginia were former anti-federalists who continued to fear centralized government, in short, nearly all of the opponents of the Federalist movement became opponents of the Federalist Party. The movement reached its zenith with the election of an overtly Federalist President, however, with the defeat of Adams in the election of 1800 and the death of Hamilton, the Federalist Party began a long decline from which it never recovered. The threat of secession was also proposed during these secret meetings, three delegates were sent to Washington, DC to negotiate New Englands terms only to discover the signing of the Treaty of Ghent, ending the war with the British

Though prominent as a Missouri Senator, Harry Truman had been vice president only three months when he became president; he was never informed of Franklin Roosevelt's war or postwar policies while vice president.

Patrick Joseph Leahy (born March 31, 1940) is an American politician serving as the senior United States Senator from …

An early Senate photo of Leahy

Former Committee Chairman Robert Byrd (D-WV, far right) shakes hands with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates while Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT, center right) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) look on. The hearing was held to discuss further funding for the War in Iraq.

Map of the boundaries of the United States Courts of Appeals (by color) and United States District Courts. All District Courts lie within the boundary of a single jurisdiction usually in a state (heavier lines); some states have more than one District Court (lighter lines denote those jurisdictions)

The United States is a federal republic in which the president, Congress, and federal courts share powers reserved to …

U.S. congressional districts covering Travis County, Texas (outlined in red) in 2002, left, and 2004, right. In 2003, the majority of Republicans in the Texas legislature redistricted the state, diluting the voting power of the heavily Democratic county by parcelling its residents out to more Republican districts.